‘He was unarmed and you shot and killed him’: Crown to accused

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Carlos Guerra Guerra said he just wanted the jury to hear “the truth.”

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“I have already admitted to all my wrongs here,” Guerra Guerra said during the Crown’s cross-examination at his second-degree murder trial Friday.

“What could possibly make me look more guilty aside from the fact that I’m standing in front of these 14 jurors and told them I shot and killed someone?” Guerra Guerra said.

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“That you intended to do so, Mr. Guerra Guerra. You intended to kill Josue Silva. That would make you look more guilty,” assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Moser said.

“I did not intend to kill Josue Silva,” Guerra Guerra replied. But Moser pressed on.

“And that you intended to cover your tracks afterwards …. That would make you look more guilty, Mr. Guerra Guerra,” Moser said.

Moser spent the last part of her intense cross-examination that began Wednesday dismantling Guerra Guerra’s insistence that he was acting in self-defence when Silva, 18, a Western University student, was fatally shot in the abdomen at a bush party in southwest London on July 31, 2021.

Guerra Guerra, 23, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and not guilty to assault with a weapon on Logan Marshall, 22, Silva’s best friend.

Guerra Guerra’s best friend at the time, Dylan Schaap, 23, has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and assault with a weapon in another court proceeding.

A co-accused at Guerra Guerra’s trial, Emily Altmann, 22, a woman who had her sights on Guerra Guerra as a boyfriend, was excused from the case last month.

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She had called Guerra Guerra to come to the bush bash after she told him she was going to be “jumped” by some young men. Superior Court Justice Patricia Moore instructed the jury not to speculate as to why she had been excused from the trial.

The jury has already heard that Altmann had been involved in a loud argument with Isabella Restrepo, then Marshall’s girlfriend, at the party over a drink that was thrown in her direction and unwanted photos snapped of Altmann and her friends. Altmann and her friends were encouraged to leave by Marshall and his friends.

The picture Moser painted of Guerra Guerra was that of a wannabe rapper who wanted to live up to the nickname Big Bloody Carlos, secure street cred by carrying a loaded handgun around and to use it to impress his peers. “It had been what you were looking for, sir,” Moser said.

Not once before this trial has Guerra Guerra told anyone that he was acting in self-defence, that he hated himself for what happened or that he had no choice when he shot Silva.

At the trial, Guerra Guerra testified he was punched to the ground and looked up to see Silva with a machete in his hand before pulling out his loaded handgun and shooting him.

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Moser said that Guerra Guerra never said it before because “Josue Silva did not have a machete … You didn’t have to defend yourself, that’s not true.”

Instead, Moser said Schaap attacked Marshall and Guerra Guerra tackled Silva and was above him while Silva was on his back. She said he grabbed the gun out of his waistband and shot him at close range.

Moser effectively pointed out that Guerra Guerra made a concerted effort to threaten witnesses into silence, dispose of the gun and his $200 track suit and take the braids out of his hair.

He also made sure he and Schaap, and the two women who were with them that night, would have their stories straight once the police tracked them down, Moser said.

A preview of what Guerra Guerra would tell the police was found in the only set of text messages about the shooting that Guerra Guerra didn’t delete from his phone with a music mentor he called Fireman Red.

He told the friend he was at the party and his female friend had been questioned, that people jumped out of the bush, but he only heard the shot and ran.

Moser noted that Guerra Guerra used virtually identical language the next day when he talked to the police and gave the alibi. She suggested that he planted the text exchange on his phone for the police to find it. He disagreed.

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Guerra Guerra did admit that he lied to the police. “I was scared of facing the consequences of my actions… I didn’t want to go to jail. I’d never been in trouble with the law. I knew it was a life-changing situation I was in.”

But Moser pointed out that what Guerra Guerra was telling the jury was that Silva was about to kill him before he fired the gun. Yet, in the first police interview, he said he was “praying for this poor kid’s soul” and later referred to him as “an innocent kid.”

“You called him an innocent kid because he was an innocent kid. And you shot him, perhaps in the middle of a fist fight, when the two of you were wrestling on the ground. He was unarmed and you shot and killed him. An innocent kid,” Moser said.

“Josue Silva was not unarmed when I discharged that firearm,” Guerra Guerra said.

Moser suggested that Guerra Guerra was actually proud of what he had done and that he had finally cemented the tough-guy reputation he craved.

Guerra Guerra disagreed and said he was distraught after the shooting. However, Moser played a security video from a residence near Pack Road and Grand Oak Cross that showed Guerra Guerra leading the group into the bush and then sauntering out of the bush seconds after the shooting, walking to his vehicle and slowly driving away. Within a few seconds, he was sending threatening text messages telling witnesses to keep quiet.

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“Look at your arms swinging at your sides. Look at your slow strides. You had just shot a man right in the abdomen, sir, and you were walking calmly, collected to your car,” Moser said.

Schaap, who had taken a machete into the party, could be seen running with nothing in his hands with his girlfriend.

“All I know at the time this happened, I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to do,” Guerra Guerra said, but Moser said he knew exactly what he was doing.

“I never walked into that bush intending to shoot or kill anybody,” he said several times.

The nagging issue in the case is the discovery of a machete at the crime scene that had a miniscule about of DNA on it, with the main contributor identified as Silva.

The jury heard evidence that the DNA might have been transferred from another source. Another machete was found in Guerra Guerra’s vehicle.

Moser suggested that the machete found at the crime scene was Schaap’s and that he dropped it after hitting Marshall on the head with it. She pointed to him running to the car without a weapon in his hand.

The other machete was Guerra Guerra’s and she suggested after reviewing all the intricate strategies used to create an alibi, he intentionally left it in his vehicle for the police to find.

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And as for the “that deadly, loaded handgun”, Moser said it was not a prop for a music video as Guerra Guerra said, but “you intended to use it depending whatever situation arose… and it did.”

“I never had any intention of shooting anybody when I walked into that bush,” he said.

After Guerra Guerra completed his testimony, the defence closed its case. The jury won’t be sitting again until Dec. 30, when closing arguments are expected.

jsims@postmedia.com

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