At the opening day of the trial for Damian Hudson, charged with the second-degree murder of 44-year-old Caroline Huebner-Makurat, the jury heard it is an agreed fact that Hudson fired the bullet that killed her.
Crown prosecutor Michael Wilson said in his opening address that on July 7, 2023, as Huebner-Makurat was going to meet a friend for lunch, she was struck by a bullet.
The bullet was fired as three drug dealers engaged in a fight, two armed with guns just metres away. Wilson told the jury, a gunfight broke out after one of the dealers was robbed.
“The bullet penetrated her left side of her abdomen, through her liver and kidney and punctured her aorta. She collapsed. Bystanders rushed in. Despite their best efforts, she died,” said Wilson speaking of Huebner-Makurat, a married mother of two young daughters.
It happened on Queen Street East at Carlaw Avenue near a safe injection site for drug users that was operating at the time, out of the main floor of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre.
The jury was told the safe injection site offered a place for users of illegal drugs to go and use safe supplies, under medical supervision. The site did not provide illegal drugs.
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“Unfortunately, that created an opportunity for drug dealers to take advantage of the steady stream of users. What resulted, in effect, was an open-air drug market in the courtyard directly west of the safe injection site,” Wilson explained. “In that courtyard, drug dealers peddled their drugs to users. Damian Hudson was one of those drug dealers.”
The jury was told in the days leading up to the shooting, Hudson was robbed and had discussed the robbery with a safe injection site worker named Khalila Mohammed. Mohammed monitored users at the site to ensure they didn’t overdose and worked around the site, including the courtyard. It’s here she interacted with users and dealers.
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“In and around July 2022, she met Damian Hudson after he obtained her phone number when a drug user used her phone to call him,” Wilson said.
“He began texting her, asking him to connect him with users, to help him sell drugs,” Wilson added.
The Crown told the jury on July 4, 2023, Mohammed and another dealer named Ahmed Ibrahim observed Hudson pacing back and forth, glaring. Later that night, Mohammed received a text message from Hudson in which Hudson called Ibrahim “a good” suggesting that she was working for his opposition, calling him a “wiz from Teesdale.”
Wilson told the jury Ahmed Ibrahim had an associate named Ahmed Ali. He said safe injection site workers will testify they saw the two men working together. Both men lived on a street in Scarborough called Teesdale Place.
“Mohammed didn’t receive this message from Damian Hudson that night. She saw it the following day She responded to Damian Hudson if he had something to say, she should say it to his face,” Wilson explained, saying Mohammed is expected to testify during the trial.
The next text message Wilson said Mohammed received from Hudson said “hang with my opps, you gonna die with ’em.”
On July 5, Wilson said Mohammed spoke to Ibrahim and told him about the texts and gave Ibrahim Hudson’s phone number. That night, the two men had a text conversation which started with Ibrahim denying he was from Teesdale, saying he was from Blake Street.
Hudson then told Ibrahim in a text message, writing “I don’t care about jail or cameras, buddy robbed me.” When Ibrahim asked who robbed Hudson, he responded, “The wiz kid from Teesdale.”
The next text from Hudson, which Wilson showed to the jury, read, “I don’t need to plan, I’ll up it on site.”
“That phrase ‘I’ll up it on site’ means to pull a gun,” said Wilson.
The Crown prosecutor explained that Ibrahim and Hudson continued their text conversation with Hudson accepting Ibrahim was not from Teesdale, had nothing to do with the robbery and did not know who the “wiz kid” was.
After that night, Hudson had a further conversation with Mohammed, in which he wrote she was working with Ibrahim to set him up to be robbed. He then wrote to her, “I’m the new captain,” said Wilson.
Wilson said Mohammed is expected to testify that means “I’m the new drug dealer.”
On July 7, Wilson told the jury, Ali and Ibrahim got into a fight on Queen Street with Hudson and “were intent on taking the satchel that Damian Hudson was wearing on his chest.”
A number of workers witnessed the struggle which ended with Hudson being robbed, Wilson explained.
Derek Venman, a harm reduction worker at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, testified he witnessed the night between three men who were wrestling.
“I believe I saw one guy hitting the other guy in the head. The one guy got away, ran further down the street. I started filming. I saw only one guy with a gun originally. They were fighting over a bag. I was a bit obscured by a tree and then all of a sudden, the other guy had a gun. The next thing you know, shots were fired and a woman got hit,” said Venman.
Hudson has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. The trial continues.
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