A man on the lam for more than a year has been arrested on an assault charge linked to an elderly downtown Sarnia shopkeeper who died of his injuries.
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Brandon Knight, then 24, was one of four people arrested and charged with second-degree murder on Aug. 30, 2020, the same day James “Jim” Wilson, 76, died in hospital after being stabbed during an altercation on College Avenue North.
The charges against Knight and two others were dropped in December 2020 after the Crown said there was no reasonable prospect of conviction, leaving Jackson Henry as the only person accused in his death.
Henry was sentenced in February 2023 to three years for manslaughter.
But Knight was later charged with assault causing bodily harm. A warrant for Knight’s arrest was issued on March 31, 2023, when he didn’t show up to court and his lawyer couldn’t get in touch with him.
On Wednesday, nearly 16 months after that warrant was issued, a handcuffed Knight, now 28, appeared in Sarnia bail court. Knight, who also has ties to London, is to return to court in Sarnia on Monday and remains in custody.
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Following Henry’s guilty plea to manslaughter, the court heard Wilson, who ran a Christina Street North retail store called Cowboys and Indians, confronted a woman outside her College Avenue home that Sunday afternoon nearly four years ago because he believed she had stolen property from his store . Henry, then a 21-year-old Sarnia resident, wasn’t involved in the initial conflict, but he eventually came outside with a steak knife and stabbed Wilson twice in the chest.
Wilson was rushed to Bluewater Health by paramedics and pronounced dead within an hour.
“He is described as a loving and guiding father and grandfather. He was a community leader and role model to others. His death has had a profound impact on his family and on his community,” Justice Mark Hornblower said during Henry’s sentencing hearing.
Henry is from the Saugeen First Nation and his family had been affected by the Canadian residential school system, a factor that played into his sentence.
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