The Brant Crown attorney’s office has confirmed that accessory charges have been withdrawn against one of the accused in a triple homicide on Six Nations of the Grand River.
Vernon Shipman, 37, was set for trial last April but delays in related trials put his matter off.
The Crown said three charges of accessory to murder after the fact were withdrawn in Superior Court on Nov. 24 due to having no prospect of conviction.
Shipman continues to face other charges in court.
The charges stem from the murders in October 2018 of Melissa Miller (who was seven months pregnant at the time of her death), Alan Porter, and Michael Jamieson. Their bodies, wrapped in blankets, bound with cords and covered by a tent, were found four days later in the bed of a stolen truck near the Oneida Nation of the Thames, near London.
“We expected that it would happen this way,” said Amber Miller, Porter’s sister-in-law.
“Four years ago, when it all started, we had our doubts this would go in the favor of the victims. It really is sad.”
Shipman is the brother of Nicholas Shipman, 40, who was sentenced in March to 18 years in prison on three counts of manslaughter for his role in a fight that broke out in a trailer on Fourth Line Road in Ohsweken.
Nine people were drinking and socializing when an argument broke out.
Jamie Beaver, Nicholas Shipman’s girlfriend at the time, used a knife to stab Miller, 37, in the chest.
Nicholas Shipman then took the knife and stabbed Miller four or five more times.
Porter, 33, tried to help Miller but Nicholas Shipman struck him in the foot with the knife. Porter was thrown to the floor where Shipman continued to stab him until he was dead.
Shipman and Jamieson, 32, wrapped and carried the bodies to a nearby garage. At some point in the night, Shipman shot Jamieson in the chest.
Beaver was sentenced in March to time served of about four years after pleading guilty to aggravated assault.
Roland Sturgeon, 24, of Muncey, Ont., was charged with three counts of being an accessory to murder but those charges were withdrawn in the fall of 2020.
Thomas Bomberry, 34, pleaded not guilty to the second-degree murder charges laid in connection with the deaths of Miller and Porter.
After delays, his trial began last February in Hamilton but was halted when he fired his lawyer. That disruption occurred as Bomberry moved to revoke the agreed statement of facts that had been introduced in court, adding that he wanted to act as his own lawyer.
His cousin, Kirsten Bomberry, in whose trailer the fight took place, had been charged as an accessory but was found not guilty in 2019. She argued that she had assisted in cleaning up the murder scene and hiding weapons because she feared for her own life .
At her cousin’s trial, Kirsten Bomberry insisted she had post-traumatic stress syndrome and couldn’t remember if she knew the victims, her cousin or the others at her home that night.
“I don’t remember anybody, nor do I want to,” Bomberry said.
Kirsten Bomberry was cited for contempt of court and put in jail. When she subsequently showed up in court to give testimony, Thomas Bomberry announced he had dismissed his lawyer, which halted the trial.
Thomas Bomberry has made several further short appearances. According to a family member of one of the victims, he fired another lawyer recently in a continuing quest to have the agreed statement of facts removed from the record.
Bomberry was in Superior Court at the end of November to set a next date to allow him to find yet another lawyer. He returns to assignment court on Dec. 15.
Meanwhile, Vernon Shipman continues in court dealing with charges laid in June 2021 of break and enter and theft on Jan. 4, 2019. He also faces two counts of failing to comply with release conditions from March.
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