HardtoCome
Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2011
- Messages
- 7
OSHAWA - He’s just a slip of a boy.
Dressed up in a grey vest and red tie, so cool and unconcerned, the 13-year-old has just pleaded not guilty to jumping and robbing Mitchell Wilson, a schoolmate with muscular dystrophy two years his junior who went on to kill himself 10 months later.
Too terrified to face his attacker in court after months of being bullied by friends of the accused, 11-year-old Mitchell had tied a plastic bag around his head and suffocated to death on Labour Day — just hours after receiving his subpoena to testify.
“He didn’t want to have to see him,” his father Craig Wilson explained outside the Durham Courthouse Monday. “It’s important for us to be here for Mitchell because he can’t be.”
With Mitchell gone, the boy charged with attacking him was very close to walking free. But prosecutor Kerri-Ann Kennedy is hoping to convince Justice Mary Teresa Devlin to still consider the statements he made to police while defence lawyer David Maubach is arguing that Mitchell can’t give evidence from the grave.
But argue as he might, the tortured young boy is here in this courtroom just the same.
His grandma Pam holds his beautiful black and white portrait in the front row. “Wherever I go,” she later explained. “This is my heart, this is my Mitchell.”
And he was here in spirit as his stepmom Tiffany Usher told the court about the attack one year ago that set off Mitchell’s steep descent into depression and fear.
The disabled boy had lived so much tragedy in such a short life. He’d lost his mother to cancer three years before and was nine when diagnosed with his degenerative muscle disease. But the car-loving jokester took it all in stride, determined to hold his disease at bay by taking many long walks every day to maintain his mobility.
On Nov. 1, 2010, he’d borrowed his dad’s iPhone to listen to music and took a different route than usual through his Pickering neighbourhood.
When Mitchell called home at 5:30 p.m. to find out what was for dinner, it sent his stepmom hurrying out to the store to pick up some groceries. On her way, she suddenly spotted two black boys in hoodies pouncing on a child. Slamming on her brakes, she went back and saw the muggers take off with a phone while Mitchell lay on the ground, bleeding from the mouth.
“They took dad’s iPhone,” he told her.
Usher gave chase in her car and saw the younger boy escape down a walkway while the older one threw the phone through her window and ran.
His teeth chipped and hands scuffed, her shaken stepson spoke to police when they arrived and met with an officer two days later to scan the neighbourhood. When they returned to school on Nov. 3, Usher said they passed an older student leaving the office who Mitchell immediately recognized as one of his assailants.
“That’s him,” vice principal Donna Wastesicoot said she overheard Mitchell tell his stepmom.
Principal Tony Rizzuto told the court that he then showed the boy a book of class photos and said Mitchell identified the Grade 7 student now on trial for assault and robbery. “That’s the guy,” he told him.
But fingering the boy would unleash a year of bullying and fear that brought an end to Mitchell’s walks, a rapid deterioration in his health and ultimately, his family says, his suicide.
With testimony still to be heard from the two investigating officers, the hearing will have to resume Feb. 7 before the judge can decide whether Mitchell’s statements can be admitted or the case dropped.
His fate in the balance, the young teen hardly appeared nervous or worried. Throughout the day, he twisted idly in his chair and laughed with his mom during the breaks.
As for his mother, she stoically sat alone through it all, studiously ignoring Mitchell’s many family members and friends who filled the courtroom.
“I feel like I’m in Mississippi,” she was overheard telling her son. “I expect to be lynched any minute.”
But this sad tale isn’t about race or colour — it’s about a boy who felt so bullied and afraid that he took his life. And another who seems so eerily unconcerned.
Dressed up in a grey vest and red tie, so cool and unconcerned, the 13-year-old has just pleaded not guilty to jumping and robbing Mitchell Wilson, a schoolmate with muscular dystrophy two years his junior who went on to kill himself 10 months later.
Too terrified to face his attacker in court after months of being bullied by friends of the accused, 11-year-old Mitchell had tied a plastic bag around his head and suffocated to death on Labour Day — just hours after receiving his subpoena to testify.
“He didn’t want to have to see him,” his father Craig Wilson explained outside the Durham Courthouse Monday. “It’s important for us to be here for Mitchell because he can’t be.”
With Mitchell gone, the boy charged with attacking him was very close to walking free. But prosecutor Kerri-Ann Kennedy is hoping to convince Justice Mary Teresa Devlin to still consider the statements he made to police while defence lawyer David Maubach is arguing that Mitchell can’t give evidence from the grave.
But argue as he might, the tortured young boy is here in this courtroom just the same.
His grandma Pam holds his beautiful black and white portrait in the front row. “Wherever I go,” she later explained. “This is my heart, this is my Mitchell.”
And he was here in spirit as his stepmom Tiffany Usher told the court about the attack one year ago that set off Mitchell’s steep descent into depression and fear.
The disabled boy had lived so much tragedy in such a short life. He’d lost his mother to cancer three years before and was nine when diagnosed with his degenerative muscle disease. But the car-loving jokester took it all in stride, determined to hold his disease at bay by taking many long walks every day to maintain his mobility.
On Nov. 1, 2010, he’d borrowed his dad’s iPhone to listen to music and took a different route than usual through his Pickering neighbourhood.
When Mitchell called home at 5:30 p.m. to find out what was for dinner, it sent his stepmom hurrying out to the store to pick up some groceries. On her way, she suddenly spotted two black boys in hoodies pouncing on a child. Slamming on her brakes, she went back and saw the muggers take off with a phone while Mitchell lay on the ground, bleeding from the mouth.
“They took dad’s iPhone,” he told her.
Usher gave chase in her car and saw the younger boy escape down a walkway while the older one threw the phone through her window and ran.
His teeth chipped and hands scuffed, her shaken stepson spoke to police when they arrived and met with an officer two days later to scan the neighbourhood. When they returned to school on Nov. 3, Usher said they passed an older student leaving the office who Mitchell immediately recognized as one of his assailants.
“That’s him,” vice principal Donna Wastesicoot said she overheard Mitchell tell his stepmom.
Principal Tony Rizzuto told the court that he then showed the boy a book of class photos and said Mitchell identified the Grade 7 student now on trial for assault and robbery. “That’s the guy,” he told him.
But fingering the boy would unleash a year of bullying and fear that brought an end to Mitchell’s walks, a rapid deterioration in his health and ultimately, his family says, his suicide.
With testimony still to be heard from the two investigating officers, the hearing will have to resume Feb. 7 before the judge can decide whether Mitchell’s statements can be admitted or the case dropped.
His fate in the balance, the young teen hardly appeared nervous or worried. Throughout the day, he twisted idly in his chair and laughed with his mom during the breaks.
As for his mother, she stoically sat alone through it all, studiously ignoring Mitchell’s many family members and friends who filled the courtroom.
“I feel like I’m in Mississippi,” she was overheard telling her son. “I expect to be lynched any minute.”
But this sad tale isn’t about race or colour — it’s about a boy who felt so bullied and afraid that he took his life. And another who seems so eerily unconcerned.
