Tentative trial dates set for 6 charged with 1st-degree murder in Saint John
Mia Urquhart | CBC News | Posted: April 20, 2023 6:52 PM | Last Updated: April 20, 2023
Justin Breau was killed after masked men broke into his apartment Aug. 17, 2022
Trial dates have been tentatively set for six people charged with first-degree murder in the death of Justin David Breau last summer.
The 39-year-old Saint John man died after being stabbed in his Charles Street apartment after three masked men broke in on Aug. 17, 2022, according to police at the time.
Four men appeared in court on Thursday morning for a pre-trial conference. Three of them are charged jointly with first-degree murder, while the other three are charged in separate files.
Prosecutor Joanne Park told the court the Crown would like to add two more people to the main file. That would only leave one accused, Dustin Trey Walker-Hammond, to be tried separately.
Walker-Hammond, 24, is scheduled to go on trial April 8, 2024.
On Thursday, Justice Darrell Stephenson set tentative trial dates for the other five. Seven weeks have been set aside beginning Sept. 16, 2024.
Over several weeks earlier this year, six people were arrested and charged in Breau's death:
- Charles William Shatford, 47, arrested Jan. 24.
- Dustin Trey Walker-Hammond, 24, arrested Jan. 25.
- Donald Robert Walker, 50, arrested Jan. 25.
- Travis Earl Boudreau, 33, arrested Jan. 26.
- Sarah Jean Belzil, 36, turned herself in Feb. 23 after arrest warrant issued.
- Evan Louis Tobias, 28, arrested March 17.
Charles Shatford has a well-known connection with Breau, who was found not guilty in December 2020 of murdering Shatford's brother, Mark.
The Crown told the jury that Breau had gone to Shatford's apartment to rob him. During his testimony, however, Breau admitted shooting Mark Shatford outside his west side apartment on Nov. 17, 2019, but said he did so in self-defence after a drug deal went awry.
The accused — minus Walker-Hammond — and their lawyers will all meet by phone on April 28 to discuss joining the separate files to add Tobias and Belzil to the original one.
The reason they weren't on the main file with Shatford, Walker and Boudreau was because they hadn't yet been arrested when the trio was charged in January, explained Park. If they had been arrested at the same time, Park said they would have all been charged jointly from the beginning.