EDMONTON – Nearly seven years since Dylan McGillis was swarmed, stabbed and left for dead on Whyte Avenue, a man charged in connection with his killing is on trial.
Cleophas Decoine-Zuniga faces manslaughter charges in the case. He was arrested in June of 2011. For the first five years, police had no suspects.
On November 19, 2006, 20-year-old McGillis was out with friends on Whyte Avenue, celebrating news he would soon be a father. His friend Robyn Palik was with him that night.
The group had just left a bar on Whyte Avenue. Palik testified she saw McGillis get into an argument with a couple of guys. She says it soon escalated to punches being thrown; and within seconds, eight or nine people swarmed her friends, punching and stomping them.
“It all kind of blew up. Everybody was basically getting beat up around me… there were maybe three people alone stomping Dylan.”
As she and McGillis tried to flee, Palik claims two men followed them. McGillis was stabbed in the stomach and Palik’s arm was cut.
Palik identified Decoine-Zunega as one of the men who beat Dylan. But she says another man stabbed him – who that is, though, is not known. And even if he is ever found, Palik wouldn’t be able to identify the person, since she says she never saw the man’s face – only his arm as he thrust a knife into her friend’s stomach.
For family, those are all details that are painful to hear – even seven years after the fact.
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“It does hurt when you hear your son’s name and you hear what he went through,” said Dylan’s mom, Marlene Beres. “And that’s my baby, you know? So I guess I’m not as tough as I thought I was.”
“It’s right in your face, it’s fresh, it’s really really tough,” added his father, Grant McGillis.
Even though witnesses describe a group of people beating McGillis, Decoine-Zunega is the only person ever charged in the killing. Dylan’s father said that has shaken his faith in the justice system.
“We’ve always been hopeful that somebody else is going to come forward with new evidence so that there could be others charged, because there was many people that night that Dylan was murdered and beaten.”
Decoine-Zunega’s trial is slated to last a month.
With files from Fletcher Kent, Global News
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