The Sarnia courthouse was supposed to be filled with dozens of potential jurors Monday to hear the start of a months-long murder trial that was scheduled several months ago.
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Instead, Jahton Blair’s trial into the death of Oyebode Oyenuga on Walpole Island First Nation in 2021 was canceled at the last minute at the request of Blair’s lawyer due to a personal issue. The case was adjourned to Friday, when all of the ongoing cases in Sarnia’s Superior Court of Justice will be addressed.
Monday’s scuttled trial initially involved two defendants, Blair, 40, of Scarborough, and Saccara Johnson, 28, of Windsor, and was expected to take two months. But in a late development, Johnson pleaded guilty last week to one charge of kidnapping. The other two charges she is facing, first-degree murder and committing an indignity to a body, will be dropped when she’s sentenced later this fall or early next year.
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But, as part of the plea deal, she agreed to testify in Blair’s upcoming trial.
Blair and Johnson were two among eight suspects swept up in a year-long probe into the death of Oyenuga, a 25-year-old Windsor man who was shot, dismembered and burned on Walpole Island in early 2021. His remains were first discovered on the First Nation between Sarnia and Chatham on March 17, 2021, but the probe revealed he was shot there overnight between Feb. 2 and Feb. 3, 2021.
Six of the eight people arrested between August 2021 and March 2022 were charged with murder. Late last year, Rolf Agard, 34, who has ties to Windsor and Mississauga, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and manslaughter and got 12 years in prison and Dejour Millington, 25, of Toronto, was handed a 20-month jail sentence for a guilty plea to offering an indignity to human remains.
Earlier this year, Drew Bliss, 39, of Chatham-Kent, pleaded guilty to trafficking a firearm and was sent to prison for five years. Zy’Shaun Lawrence, 20, of Kitchener, also pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder and was sentenced to nine months in jail.
Two of the other accused were cleared of all charges in this case.
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