Waylon Percy Junior Jackson, 26, is pictured in this photo from the GoFundMe website. Jackson was stabbed to death in Kelowna on Friday, March 11, 2016.
Image Credit: gofundme.com
March 21, 2018 - 4:37 PM
KELOWNA – The jury knows who killed Waylon Percy Jackson. They also know where and when, and have seen the weapon used.
Now they have to decide if Chad Alphonse, who was like a brother to him, meant for him to die.
“The case is actually quite simple,” Alphonse’s lawyer told the jury on the last day of submissions today, March 21.
Alphonse is charged with the second degree murder of Jackson during a fight at a small party in Rutland in March 2016.
Terry La Liberté called no witnesses during the two and a half week trial and today, March 21, told the jury why.
“This case is so simple,” he said in Kelowna Supreme Court. “It could have been dealt with in a couple days.”
He says the evidence fails to prove Alphonse intended to kill Jackson – a requirement for a conviction of second degree murder – when he fatally stabbed him three times at a gathering at Jackson’s townhouse he shared with his wife and newborn baby.
Crown lawyer Dave Grabavac says the two men were “like brothers” but got into an argument that turned physical. Jackson started to win the fight and hit Alphonse several times with a metal chair.
When Alphonse stopped and turned his back, Jackson took a folding knife out of his back pocket and slashed him across the shoulder. Grabavac says Jackson turned to face him and Alphonse stabbed him two more times on the left side of his torso. The wound penetrated a lung and the left ventricle of his heart.
He collapsed to the ground in a pool of his own blood and died.
La Liberté says Alphonse remembers little of the fight, but only took the knife out because he thought Jackson was going for another larger knife that had been on the counter most of the day.
Both men had consumed alcohol and marijuana.
“This knife had a presence in that room,” he told the jury. “They all knew it was there. There had been discussions about it. (Jackson) was under the influence of alcohol, with this (knife) hanging over his head, after being beaten by a chair, it’s totally reasonable to come out of that corner with a knife in his hand.”
Alphonse left the residence but was arrested soon after. Police found a bloody knife in his back pocket.
“He was gonzo. He didn’t have any concept of what was going on,” La Liberté said. “If he was trying to escape anything, why did he put the knife back in his pocket? He wasn’t running away. He wandered out into the night.”
The jury is expected to begin deliberating tomorrow afternoon.
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