‘Forever gone’: Mother details searing pain of losing son killed at bush party

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Dylan Schaap’s defence lawyer said what happened at a bush party where a promising Western University student was shot to death was “a combination of horrific immaturity coupled with horrific stupidity.”

But assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Moser added to lawyer Aaron Prevost’s blunt assessment. “Horrifically criminal,” she said.

What haunts Josue Silva’s mother are the last words she heard her son say as he breezed out the door on July 30, 2021, to go to the outdoor party just off Pack Road in southwest London on a warm summer night.

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“Ya me voy,” he called out in Spanish for “I’m leaving.”

The 18-year-old son, brother, nephew and friend asked his parents for permission to go out with his buddies, “the Lambeth Boys,” to the bush bash that had been organized by some teens to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

“We should have never said yes,” Claudia Silva wrote in a victim impact statement read into the court record by assistant Crown attorney Kristina Mildred at the sentencing hearing for Schaap, 23, who pleaded guilty in May to manslaughter and assault with a weapon.

“Since that night, I’ve forbidden my oldest and youngest sons to ever repeat that sentence because the trauma will hit and those words will trigger the fear of losing them… That kind, protective, loving, caring, hard-working, committed young boy full of dreams is forever gone,” she said, adding he was “purposely destroyed by one bullet.”

Schaap didn’t fire the gun, but his guilty plea is for being a party to the homicide. The assault with a weapon was for hitting Logan Marshall in the head with the handle of a machete with which Schaap had armed himself before arriving at the party.

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Marshall suffered a concussion and, as his mother Michelle described in her victim witness statement, “devastating pain and grief” over losing a best friend.

That pain reverberated among the young people close to Silva. “The impact on our community has been immense, the sense of safety and normalcy shattered and the emotional scars left by this tragedy will linger for years to come.”

Schaap’s future will be determined by Superior Court Justice Michael Carnegie in December after hearing a pitch from Prevost for a time-served disposition, or five years, while Moser argued for a 12-year prison sentence.

Silva was shot to death after a group of strangers had been summoned to the woods to avenge a slight made against another female partier.

Schaap knew one of his gang was carrying a loaded gun, referred to as “a stick.” The machete and a nine-millimetre casing was found in the area and Silva’s DNA could not be excluded from the mixed profile on the weapon.

The court also learned Schaap and his pals were so unaffected by the killing that three days after Silva was shot to death, they happily shared a London Free Press article about Silva’s death, text-chatted with heart and fire emojis about how excited they were to get media attention and vowed to support the shooter no matter what.

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They called each other “family.”

“I’m so sorry for my actions that took place that night. I want the courts and the family to know that what happened was never my intention. What happened to Josue Silva was never supposed to happen,” Schaap said when asked by Carnegie if he had anything to say to the court.

He apologized to his family, his friends and to the Silva and Marshall families. He prayed for forgiveness. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about my actions that night and my life. It still haunts me every night…. I’ve had a lot of time to think and change my friend group due to this life experience.”

What Schaap and his buddies were thinking three years ago was outlined in an agreed statement of facts that was read into the court record by Moser. Large portions of the statement were placed under a publication ban.

But the details that are public paint a troubling portrait.

Moser said the party was in a wooded lot connected to the road by a path. Surveillance footage from a home near the path recorded more than 150 people coming and going from a large bonfire.

Silva and Marshall were there with their friend group. A young woman was there separately with her friends. At some point a drink was either thrown or spilled by one of Silva’s friends. The woman was upset and believed one of Silva’s friends was taking photos of her and her group. That led to threats and shouting.

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Silva’s group told the woman’s group to leave. They walked down the path to their vehicles and the woman texted a male friend who was at a different party with Schaap, telling the man “she was being attacked by a group of males and needed help,” Moser said.

The woman’s male friend headed to the Pack Road party with Schaap and others and met up with the woman. They headed back to the bush party just as some of the partiers were leaving.

The partiers knew about the tensions earlier and contacted Silva’s group to let them know the woman was back with armed muscle. Silva and his friends hid in the trees away from the fire.

When the woman couldn’t find Silva’s group, she decided to leave. While she was walking away, Silva’s group received information the coast was clear. Silva, Marshall and another friend came out of the forest. One of the woman’s friend’s identified Marshall and Schaap attacked him with the blunt end of his machete.

Both fell to the ground, but Marshall was able to get up and run. He was located later and taken to the hospital.

But in the commotion, there was a shot. Silva collapsed. Everyone fled, except some of Silva’s friends who gathered around him. “There was some delay in calling 911 because, at the time, many of the partygoers believed he had been struck by a firework,” Moser said.

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Eventually, paramedics reached him, but he was unresponsive and died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen in hospital.

Schaap, who has a Grade 10 education, “was a follower,” Prevost said. This is his first long stint in custody and it has been “eye-opening.”

“He has insight into this terrible, terrible situation that he had a part in causing,” Prevost said.

But Moser said what is “most chilling” is Schaap and his friends went to the bush bash “hunting for innocent unarmed victims.”

“(Josue Silva’s) life was snuffed out by this horrific criminality,” she said.

And a family has been shattered. Silva’s mother spends all of her free time at the cemetery. “I have to be forced to blow kisses to the sky, to talk to a stone, to touch the grass instead of being able to kiss and touch my son’s face,” she wrote in the her victim statement.

“In the name of my son, I beg you to please help to bring back some peace and safety to our community.”

Carnegie will deliver his sentencing decision on Dec. 17.

Two other people charged in the case are still before the courts.

jsims@postmedia.com

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