Bush bash homicide trial: Witness testifies to seeing accused killer with gun

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The plan was Mackenzie Tulloch would drive to London, pick up his then-girlfriend and head right back to Hamilton.

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But things did not turn out exactly as planned. Tulloch, now 22, and his girlfriend at the time, Lina Latif, did return to Hamilton on July 31, 2021 – but after Tulloch saw a masked man with a gun and stood a few feet away when 18-year-old Josue Silva was fatally shot in the abdomen at a southwest London bush party.

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What was even more frightening for Tulloch is that he knew the masked man was Carlos Guerra Guerra, now 23, who is on trial for second-degree murder. Tulloch met him on the Victoria Day weekend when he and Latif hung out with Emily Altmann and Guerra Guerra, who was introduced to him as her boyfriend.

Only minutes before Silva was shot, Tulloch testified on Tuesday that he saw Guerra Guerra, wearing a mask and dressed all in black, by the bonfire at the party and spied the butt of a handgun peeking out of his waist band.

“Obviously, I’m confused and a little concerned as to why there was a weapon,” he said through questions from assistant Crown attorney Kristina Mildred.

With Guerra Guerra was another masked man, beefier than Guerra Guerra, someone Latif said was called “Chaps.” The jury has already heard that Dylan Schaap, 23, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Silva’s death.

Tulloch said “Chaps” had a machete and was hitting trees with it, cutting off leaves.

Tulloch was testifying at Guerra Guerra’s Superior Court jury trial that began on Oct. 15 with jury selection. Altmann was a co-defendant in the case, but Justice Patricia Moore told the jury last week that Altmann and her defence team had been excused from the trial and it was not to speculate why.

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Tulloch only knew two people at the party when he first arrived – his girlfriend of five months at the time and Altmann. He said Latif sent him directions to the party where she was going to meet him.

They were supposed to leave for Hamilton right away. But instead, Latif took him down the long dark path to the party where she had been partying with her friend Altmann, he said. Both women had been drinking.

He was there to see the argument erupt between Altmann and a woman. Altmann was angry there were videos being taken of her and her friends without their consent. Latif stood with Altmann and the argument became heated.

A group of young men stepped in between the woman and Altmann and Latif, he said. One of the men told Tulloch to tell Latif to “be quiet.”

“In my head, it was something that was quite small between two girls, may or not have been a misunderstanding as to why the argument occurred in the first place and at a point it got a bit more heated when the males began to intervene,” Tulloch said.

But the whole situation lasted for less than a minute, he said. He calmed the situation by picking up Latif, putting her over his shoulder and carrying her up the path toward the exit. Altmann and others followed. Several males followed them halfway up the path to make sure they left.

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While walking along the path, Altmann was on the phone, he said. She was talking to Guerra Guerra. Tulloch said he took the phone and “I told him what happened in that argument.”

He said he spoke to Guerra Guerra because the women had been drinking. “I thought, I’m sober and as her boyfriend I felt it was the right thing to do to alert him (to) what happened.”

He told Guerra Guerra there had been an altercation and they were leaving.

Tulloch said he and Latif returned to his car, and were going to head to Hamilton, but Latif wanted to go back to the party because Altmann was going back. They returned to the bonfire in the clearing.

That’s when Tulloch saw Guerra Guerra masked up, with the other masked man and a heavier-set woman. Altmann was nearby.

Tulloch said he spoke to Guerra Guerra with “Hey, what’s up?” as a greeting. Guerra Guerra said similar words back to him.

But Tulloch said he knew there was “something up to no good” that was about to happen. He said he didn’t want to do anything drastic after he saw the gun and thought the right thing to do was to stay with Latif. He said he told her he had seen the gun.

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Altmann, he said, “wanted to talk to the individual she had the argument with before” and was asking people: “Have you seen so-and-so?”

Eventually, they all decided to leave and were heading down the path when “two guys came out of the bush to my left side” and “there was an instant wrestling match between the two individuals and Carlos and Chaps.”

Tulloch said he couldn’t see much because it was pitch black. “Chaps” tackled one of the people who came out of the bushes and Guerra Guerra joined in. There were two one-on-one wrestling matches, Tulloch said.

The two men who came out of the bushes did not have weapons, he said, but there were punches thrown. He didn’t hear anything that was said.

Then, about 15 seconds into the wrestling matches, Tulloch recalled: “I heard a loud bang.”

“Everyone ran,” he said.

Mildred asked him what was going through his mind.

“Everything,” Tulloch said. “A million things . . . it’s difficult to put one single word on that kind of experience. Terrified, worried, surprised, shocked.”

He said he and Latif ran to his car and left. In the car, he received an Instagram call from Guerra Guerra, who wanted to find and speak to Altmann.

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Tulloch said he didn’t call 911 because he had “a fear of retribution for snitching” and figured someone else had made a call for help. “I was aware he was making threats . . . and I believed to be included in those threats.”

So when the police came to talk to him on Aug. 5, the first time, he didn’t tell them he knew it was Guerra Guerra and Chaps. He ended up speaking to the police three times that day.

“Because upon the police leaving, I knew I had done the wrong thing and I had to face the fear of how I was feeling,” he said.

Tulloch called the police back to correct his statement.

In cross-examination, Guerra Guerra’s defence lawyer, Ricardo Golec, asked why he told police that during the initial argument, the young men surrounded Altmann “in a very threatening way,” but did not use that language in court.

“You have to forgive me for the words I used on that day. I was an 18-year-old kid in a world of emotions and trying to comprehend what had happened. There might have been words I used that may not apply now,” Tulloch said.

The trial continues.

jsims@postmedia.com

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