The Crown provided a snapshot of its case for the jury late yesterday in the second-degree murder trial for 24-year-old Robert Belbin.
Belbin, and the victim, 22-year-old Seamus Secord, were not strangers to each other, or the courts.
Both had charges hanging over their heads when they got together around 5 in the evening on Tuesday, February 7, 2023; in fact, Belbin had been out on release at the time.
The Crown claims he picked up Secord shortly before witnesses saw two men in a brief scrap at the corner of Newtown Road and Mayor Avenue, apparently over “missing property.”
The scene on Mayor Avenue on Febraury 7, 2023 (VOCM News)
And while it may have been quick, it was by all accounts ruthless, with Secord stabbed in the stomach multiple times, any one of which would’ve ended his life.
That’s according to the autopsy evidence to come, said prosecutor Mark James, who also conceded a weapon was never found.
It’s alleged Belbin then ran up the hill while Secord staggered down to his house near the bottom, where he “took his last breath.”
The mothers of both the victim and the accused sat in separate areas of the courtroom yesterday for day one of what’s expected to be a six-week trial.
It’s being heard before a jury of eight men and six women, including two alternates, before Supreme Court Justice Trina Simms.
Paul Thistle is co-counsel for the Crown while Jason Edwards and Ben Curties, with Legal Aid, are representing Belbin.
