A Sarnia man charged by city police with causing the death of a 69-year-old woman discovered at a north-end apartment building during the fall of 2020 has been ordered to stand trial, but on a lesser charge.
Timothy Nahmabin was charged on Halloween that year with second-degree murder, but a Sarnia judge decided after a lengthy preliminary hearing to change the charge.
“For the reasons I’ve outlined, Mr. Nahmabin is ordered to stand trial at the next sittings of the Superior Court for the offense of manslaughter only,” Justice Deborah Austin said Tuesday in a virtual court.
Nahmabin, a Sarnia resident with ties to the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, sat quietly in an office as he listened to the judge’s decision over Zoom.
All evidence heard throughout the hearing, along with the reasons for Austin’s decision, are covered by a court-ordered publication ban. The case will return to Superior Court in early April, where he will be represented by local criminal defense lawyer David Stoesser.
Under Canadian law, second-degree murder is defined as an intentional slaying that was not planned, while manslaughter is defined as a homicide where there was no intention to cause death but there may have been intention to cause harm.
The woman was found unresponsive at the bottom of a rear-entrance landing in the 900 block of Colborne Road around 10:15 am on Oct. 25, 2020. Soon after, she was pronounced dead from injuries suffered during a fall, police said.
The woman’s family did not want her name released, police said. Her name has also been redacted from public documents filed in court and a publication ban is in place.
Sarnia police, though, did confirm the suspect and the woman knew each other. They were acquaintances, not friends, a police spokesperson said. He added he couldn’t comment on if there was any animosity between the two or if they lived in the same building.
Police also said they weren’t aware of a weapon being involved.
Nahmabin, 42 at the time of his arrest, was granted bail on Feb. 10, 2021, although the plan had to be tweaked just a week later as the person responsible for him had fallen seriously ill.
Nahmabin had spent 102 days inside the Sarnia Jail prior to the judge approving the $25,000 bail plan. He is supposed to live with his mother or his aunt at his mother’s home in the First Nation, according to the revised plan.
He’s under house arrest with a curfew and is only permitted to leave the property for certain situations such as medical emergencies, counseling sessions or meetings with his lawyer. Nahmabin’s mother won’t be on the hook for the $25,000 unless her son is caught breaking any of the court-ordered rules.
The unidentified woman was one of 13 deceased discovered in Sarnia-Lambton amid a record-setting two-year run of homicide investigations.
-with files from the London Free Press