Sarnia homicide trial: Neighbor who heard ‘sharp, painful scream’ points to accused

The second day of a Sarnia homicide trial was electrified by a confrontation between the defendant’s lawyer and a witness, who accused the lawyer’s client of pushing a senior citizen down a flight of stairs to her death.

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Jesse Duguay lived on the same floor of a Colborne Road apartment building as Nada Court, a 69-year-old woman found dead there on Oct. 25, 2020, and Timothy Nahmabin, a 45-year-old man on trial this week for manslaughter. Duguay, who was first called to the stand Tuesday afternoon, continued testing Wednesday about what he heard and saw the morning Court died.

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Duguay, who had been sleeping that Sunday morning, said he was awakened by a bang and a scream.

“It was a sharp, painful scream. Definitely female,” he said.

But Duguay also made several claims while on the stand Wednesday about what he believed happened: Nahmabin pushed Court down the stairs to her death, he theorized.

“It’s f—ed-up. You don’t push an old lady down the stairs,” Duguay said.

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During cross-examination, defense lawyer Ken Marley focused on details about which Duguay previously testified, such as whether he came home stoned the night before Court died and what order he heard the bang and the scream that woke him up the next morning. After several heated exchanges, including some personal remarks from the witness, Marley pointed out to Duguay the trial is a serious enterprise as a man’s future is at stake.

“A man who murdered an old lady,” Duguay responded.

At one point Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia stopped the trial for 10 minutes and lectured Duguay about his role as a witness, but he and Marley continued to clash about specific details changing from his initial police interview three years ago through last year’s preliminary hearing to this week’s trials.

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He said he heard several doors opening and closing after hearing the bang and scream and claimed it was Nahmabin fleeing the scene. But near the end of his cross-examination, Duguay, who initially was Adamant Nahmabin was in the apartment the night before as he heard him mumbling, conceded he didn’t actually see him.

“I can’t look through walls,” he said.

Nahmabin, wearing a gray T-shirt, sat quietly at his lawyer’s table staring down throughout most of the verbal sparring between his lawyer and his former neighbor. Initially charged with second-degree murder one week after Court’s death, the charge was reduced to manslaughter last year following a preliminary hearing. Nahmabin pleaded not guilty Tuesday, cueing what’s expected to be a two-week trial.

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The start of the trial revealed publicly, for the first time, who died three years ago as Court’s name wasn’t released by police at the request of her family. Her name was redacted on documents filed at the Sarnia courthouse and her identity was covered by publication bans throughout the preliminary hearing and Nahmabin’s lease hearing.

The loving mother, grandmother, sister and aunt was a strong, passionate, and intelligent woman – a former nurse and paralegal – who will be forever missed by numerous friends, family members as well as all those whose lives she touched throughout her lifetime, according to her obituary.

The trial on Wednesday also heard from two Sarnia police constables, Scott Oosterhof and Connor Green. Green, who canvassed the apartment building the morning Court was found dead, briefly talked to Nahmabin at his doorway about what he saw and heard. But the conversation didn’t reveal much and he wasn’t treated as a suspect at the time.

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Little of Oosterhof’s testimony was available by press time Wednesday.

The trial previously has heard from another tenant in the building, Andrew Riddoch, who became emotional as he described being the first to discover Court – not just a neighbor, but a friend – lying motionless at the bottom of a stairwell leading to her basement apartment . He also became upset when describing the relationship between Court and Nahmabin leading up to her death, testing Court was feeling unsafe and intimated by him and feared she was going to be pushed down the stairs.

Court, who was discovered with blood and lacerations around her eye and ear, had mobility issues as she was recovering from knee surgery and at times used a cane and a walker. The Crown has asked all witnesses, including a Sarnia police sergeant, two paramedics and two funeral home staffers, about the condition of the stairs at the time. None noted any issues.

The trial, being heard by Carroccia without a jury, continues Thursday.

This was the fifth of 17 homicide investigations in Sarnia-Lambton between March 2020 and October 2022, one of the deadliest two-year stretches in the region in recent memory. But it’s also one of the first to go to trial.

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@ObserverTerry

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