Feb 22, 2008 10:40 AM
Peter Small
Courts Bureau
A 23-year-old Toronto man who shot another by mistake after someone spat at his girlfriend has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Bradley Johnson’s guilty plea will not bring back the man he shot but it is to be hoped that it will bring some closure to his family, Superior Court Justice David McCombs told him when he sentenced him on Wednesday.
According to an agreed statement of facts obtained Thursday, Johnson shot Christopher Pellew, 22, after pointing his gun at the victim’s friend Brian Richards in March 2006 at a semi-detached bungalow on Daystrom Dr. near Finch Ave. W. and Weston Rd.
Richards had angered Johnson when he spat in the face of Johnson’s girlfriend, Zelika Ellis, according to the statement.
Ellis, 19, had just ordered Pellew and Richards out of the house, where they had come to visit against her wishes
Earlier in the evening Richards had threatened to spit in Ellis’s face when she told him in a phone call that he wasn’t welcome.
As he was about to leave, Ellis asked, “Didn’t you say you were going to spit in my face?”
Richards replied that he did and spat at her.
Johnson, who was just behind his girlfriend Ellis, pulled out a gun and pointed it at Richards. However Pellew made some kind of movement and Johnson turned the gun slightly toward him and fired, killing him.
“This case is yet another example of what should have been nothing more than a … fist fight, but which predictably turned into a fatal tragedy due to the presence of an illegal gun,” said Johnson’s lawyer, Edward Sapiano, in an e-mailed statement.
He called the illegal gun “a vile despicable thing which wreaks havoc, pain and destruction upon the lives of so many, but which contributes to the tremendous ‘profits’ of private and publicly traded manufacturers in Canada and the U.S.”
After the shooting, Ellis and her seven-month-old daughter disappeared from the home, prompting police to issue a notice expressing concern for their safety.
Three days later, Ellis contacted police to say she was in good health.
Pellew’s body was found on nearby Lindylou Rd. A trail of blood led police through a backyard and over a fence to the Daystrom Dr. home where the slaying occurred.
After being credited for pre-trial custody, Johnson will serve another six years and two months.
10-year sentence for shooting wrong man
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