A man, who is serving life for the murder of a prominent member of the Guyanese community in Canada, may have his conviction overturned as a few strands of hair that could prove key his bid to overturn his first-degree murder conviction must be released for forensic testing, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled today, the Toronto National Post has reported.
According to the report the court ordered Crown prosecutors to hand over hair clippings that were used to convict and sentence Leighton Hay to life in prison for the 2002 slaying of Colin Moore.
Hay was convicted in 2004 along with Gary Eunick, but his conviction relied on an eye-witness who said that he had short two-inch dreadlocks. She had trouble identifying him later in a lineup, when Hay’s head was shaved.
Prosecutors relied heavily on Hay’s shaved head to prove his guilt, saying that some short hairs found in a roll of old newspaper were evidence that he had tried to change his appearance after the murder.
However, his defence lawyer had argued that the hair was not from his head, but from his beard, which he had shaved days before the murder, but no one thought to have the hairs tested at the time.
James Lockyer, of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, argued the hairs should be tested at the Centre of Forensic Sciences to determine whether they were from his head or his face.
In their decision Supreme Court justices Rosalie Abella, Ian Binnie and Thomas Cromwell agreed, saying that “given the importance attached to the head shaving evidence by the Crown counsel at trial and the significance of the inference of guilt which the head shaving evidence appears to have had in the Court of Appeal’s [decision to uphold the guilty verdict],” Mr. Hay should have the hair for testing to formulate his appeal.
Moore was fatally shot by gatecrashers while hosting a Guyanese charity dance at the HHMS Bar on Victoria Park Avenue by two men who were ejected from the event 15 minutes earlier. The killers hunted down Moore and shot him point blank. Hay, then 19, of Malton and Gary Eunick, then 27, a Toronto hairstylist, were each convicted of first-degree murder. Eunick was the boyfriend of Hay’s sister. Moore’s brother was also shot that evening, but survived. Bloody clothing with gunshot residue and bullets inside a sock buried in a clothing hamper were among evidence presented in court.
