BY KEITH LACEY
Eight months since being arrested for second-degree murder, a Sudbury man?s preliminary hearing is underway.
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MACDONALD |
Michel Burnett, 44, is charged in the stabbing death of his ?best friend? Keith MacDonald, 43.
MacDonald was killed after being stabbed near the heart area last Aug. 6.
Justice Guy Mahaffy ordered a ban on publication on all evidence presented at the preliminary hearing.
Mahaffy will decide at the end of the preliminary hearing if there?s sufficient evidence for Burnett to stand trial.
Burnett?s lawyer Robert Beckett told the court his client wishes to be tried by a judge and jury in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice if and when the matter proceeds to trial.
The first witnesses called Friday included a forensic identification officer from the Greater Sudbury Police Service, an ambulance attendant who arrived shortly after police received a call and tended to MacDonald, and the chief investigating sergeant from the police service.
The preliminary hearing continued all day Friday and will continue Tuesday, April 13. It is expected to last four more days.
Burnett?s trial date will be set following the preliminary hearing. It?s expected his trial will be heard sometime in late summer or fall.
About 15 people from the Burnett and MacDonald families were in the courtroom Friday for the beginning of the preliminary hearing.
Assistant Crown attorneys Len Walker and Kara Vakiparta are prosecuting the case.
Following his arrest eight months ago, Beckett told Northern Life that Burnett and MacDonald were ?best friends?.
?As I understand it, they were good friends,? said Beckett. ?The person who succumbed to the injuries and my client were, to my knowledge, the best of friends.
?My client is not doing very well and is distraught first and foremost realizing his good friend has died and secondly because he?s been charged with committing the offence.?
Police were called to an apartment unit at 130 King St. in the Flour Mill area of Sudbury around 1 am.
MacDonald was still conscious when police and ambulance arrived and was rushed to hospital, but was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at hospital.
This incident was the only homicide in the City of Greater Sudbury in 2003.
