A Toronto man who stole gold chains from two strangers before shooting them both outside a Scarborough nightclub has been found guilty of second-degree murder and robbery, but not guilty of attempted murder.
The jury did however find Waldron guilty of the lesser offence of aggravated assault in relation to the attempted murder charge.
As the jury read out the guilty verdicts, there was silence in the packed downtown Toronto courtroom on Wednesday where 29-year-old Jahvon Waldron was on trial. Waldron, who was sitting next to his lawyer, put his hands over his face and appeared emotional.
It took the jury just one day of deliberating before convicting Waldron after a three-week trial.
Peter Khan’s widow, Mohanie Henry-Khan, said she is relieved and happy with the jury’s verdict.
“I feel like justice was served today and I continue to live with my husband’s memories and the love that we shared can never be taken from me,” she said outside court.
Henry-Khan said she is also grateful to crown attorneys Paul Kelly and Jake Humphrey who prosecuted the case and the officers from Toronto Police who thoroughly investigated the case.
It was May 7, 2022 around 3 a.m. when 36-year-old Peter Khan and a friend were in the parking lot standing next to Khan’s Mercedes Benz outside “Tropical Nights” on Morningside Avenue, south of Sheppard Avenue, having a beer and a cigarette.
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Court heard that a man in a black puffy jacket approached Khan and his friend, asked for a cigarette before grabbing the gold chain that was hanging around Khan’s neck.
The gunman who was masked then shot Khan at close range in the chest.
The gunman in the black puffy jacket was then captured on surveillance video walking away towards another vehicle in the parking lot metres away.
The shooter opened the driver’s side door of that vehicle before ripping the gold chain off the occupant of the car. As the robbery victim began to get up out of the driver’s seat, he too was shot. A single bullet piercing his arm and leg.
Khan was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead. Fortunately, the other man who was shot survived.
The crown argued that video surveillance from various places including the parking lot of nightclub, a plaza where another man was robbed of his jewelry earlier that night and the apartment building where Waldron lived with his mother proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Waldron was the gunman who shot Khan and the other man who survived.
A sentencing hearing for Waldron has been scheduled for February 2025. Second-degree murder means an automatic life sentence. The judge will have to decide on a period of parole ineligibility between ten and 25 years.
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