 Court photo shows Shawn Amos, left, at Toronto bar with friend Troy McLean, after the brutal killing of Richard Boxall, who was beaten with a bat, cleaver and barbecue fork. (SUN MEDIA)
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BARRIE -- Blitzed on line after line of cocaine, Shawn Amos partied it up in a Toronto bar just 15 hours after he allegedly participated in beating a man with a baseball bat, a meat cleaver, scissors and a barbecue fork.
But the night of gluttonous drug use led to his own demise when Amos, bug-eyed and fidgety, started to ramble to his friend that he just committed a murder.
Amos, 36, and his friends Scott Dakins, 22 and John Preston, 38, are now facing a possible life sentence for first-degree murder of Richard Boxall, who was found wrapped in a blanket and dumped in a snow bank on Ridge Rd., north of Barrie, Feb. 23, 2007.
A jury is now deliberating a verdict following a three-month trial where the men have sat in glassed-in prisoner's boxes with shackled feet because -- unknown to the jury -- of their raucous behaviour while in custody and previous violent criminal records.
Throughout the trial the jury heard how Boxall, 31, begged for his life and tried in vain to convince Amos, a drug dealer and accused ringleader in the killing, that he did not steal his bag of ecstasy from the kitchen table.
It started as an impromptu party when the three accused and another man who became a key Crown witness, Troy MacLean, sat around the kitchen table getting high.
"It's how we passed the time," said one witness.
GRABBED BAG
Amos and his friends used cocaine, crack, ecstasy, marijuana and alcohol, court heard. One witness testified their level of intoxication was a "nine" out of 10.
Suddenly a thief named Pete Gosni grabbed Amos' bag of ecstasy off the table and took off in a cab, court heard. A short time later, Boxall met Gosni on the street, bought some of those ecstasy tablets and then made the fateful decision to stop by Amos' apartment where he showed the "E" he just bought.
When Boxall saw the rage on Amos' face, he backed away toward the door. Court heard he didn't see the baseball bat raised behind and slammed down on his head, while others joined the beating.
"Please," he begged. "I didn't do anything!"
He was dragged, bloodied and half-conscious, to the bathtub and the men did more lines at the kitchen table and discussed what to do with him, court heard. As Boxall tried to sneak out, he was beaten; this time the barbecue fork pierced his heart.
As the men wrapped him in a blanket to get rid of his body, Boxall tried one last time to get up. Amos stomped on his face and broke his jaw, saying, "this guy won't even die," the jury was told.
They stuffed him in a trunk and dumped his body on a rural road in the early morning hours. Then they went back to do more cocaine.
As the day grew into the next night, the sleepless Amos and MacLean ended up at Woody's Church St. bar in Toronto to meet a friend. The three partied and snapped photos of each other.
"We were all just flirting," said the friend, Nathan Buress, on the witness stand when he told the jury Amos was extremely high when he talked about being ripped off, saying he "took care of it and it was messy." He said Amos was worried about the clean-up because his "regular people" who usually clean up weren't around.
"I was scared," Buress told the jury at trial.
WENT TO POLICE
"I'm thinking, I'm drinking with people who killed somebody and they are really high right now, but later ... they will realize they told me all this stuff, and I'm in trouble."
Pretending he had to go to the washroom, Buress went to Toronto Police 55 Division and told them what he heard.
Within hours, police had Amos and his friends under surveillance. A day later they picked up MacLean and showed him the interview with Buress. MacLean told police he was terrified as he watched Boxall beaten to death.
MacLean later cut a deal with the Crown for a manslaughter plea and a seven-year jail sentence instead of life for murder, in exchange for testifying against his friends.
MacLean said he is afraid for his life and has learned that Amos put a threat out on his life while he is in prison.
In an unusual move, Amos, going against his own lawyer's advice, insisted on doing his own closing submissions. He stood before the jury, flanked by six police officers, and pointed the finger at his ex-friend as the real killer.
"It was Troy MacLean who killed Richard Boxall," he said as he stood in a suit and tie at the front of the court room.
The jury will continue its deliberations today.
