Homicide trial linked to Sarnia senior’s death may be adjourned

Another homicide trial linked to the discovery of a Sarnia senior’s body in their south-end home amid one of the deadliest months in the city’s history may be adjourned.

A four-week jury trial was finally expected to start next month in Sarnia’s Superior Court of Justice, but it was recently canceled due in part to a pre-trial motion – the details are covered by a publication ban – brought forward by one of the accused’s lawyers. Now the trial involving the death of Allen Schairer, 62, won’t start until April 2, 2024.

Joshua Tomlinson, a 37-year-old Sarnia resident and one of two men charged with Schairer’s death, has a second homicide jury trial scheduled for October, but that may get moved, too. Tomlinson’s lawyer, Terry Brandon, told a judge last week she is bringing an application to adjourn the trial linked to the death of 66-year-old Sue Lumsden.

“I’m hopeful that it will be approved, but I’m in a holding pattern in the moment,” she said to Superior Court Justice Russell Raikes.

The adjournment application for the two- to three-week trial is scheduled to be heard in mid-June. There was no indication when the trial will be rescheduled for if the application is granted.

Tomlinson was charged with first-degree murder in July 2021 following what Sarnia police called a “major breakthrough” in a previously unsolved case. That charge was later downgraded to second-degree murder, but Tomlinson is facing a second charge of break and enter with intent to commit an offence.

Lumsden, a hospital volunteer who lived alone, was found dead in her Essex Street home on Jan. 23, 2021. Schairer was found by Sarnia police three days later during a welfare check at the Devine Street house he lived alone in.

Tomlinson, then 35, and Noah Brown, 28, of no fixed address were arrested later that week and both charged with first-degree murder. About a year later the charges were changed to second-degree murder, but the pair was also charged with robbery and break-and-enter.

Brown, now 30, was not charged in the Lumsden case.

Police have been tight-lipped about both homicide investigations – two of four in January 2021 that prompted a warning to close windows and doors – with no information released about cause of death, potential weapons or alleged motives. None of the charges have been tested in court.

Tomlinson has been previously convicted of multiple break-ins throughout Sarnia and served significant time behind bars. He was sentenced to 14 months in jail in 2015 and the next year picked up a two-year trip to prison despite leaving multiple local businesses empty-handed.

The other two homicide cases from January 2021 are already over, with a Sarnia man getting life in prison with speech possible after 15 years for shooting his fiancé and another Sarnia man receiving about a two-year time-served award for manslaughter in the death of his friend.

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@ObserverTerry