Nearly five years to the day after 33-year-old Hamilton father and DJ Leonard Pinnock was killed in a senseless murder, 29-year-old Akil Whyte has been convicted of the execution-style shooting that was caught on surveillance camera.
After Justice Peter Bawden told the court, nearly three hours into reading his verdict, that he was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this was a first-degree murder, Pinnock’s mother, father and brothers got to their feet, began clapping and yelled, “Yes, yes!”
Another supporter of the victim’s family started screaming profanities at Whyte and pointing at him as he stood in handcuffs, prompting family and friends of the offenders to get upset. Police and court officers had to intervene to keep the two sides apart before Pinnock’s family was led out of the courtroom.
Pinnock’s brother told Global News outside court that emotions were running high.
“As for the emotional outbreak in the courtroom today, it’s been since 2017 since we’ve been waiting to hear this type of verdict,” said Michael Barr.
Pinnock was targeted on April 21, 2017, around 9:30 p.m. when two suspects wearing black clothing with their hoodies up walked up to the car where Pinnock was parked on Bowie Avenue near Dufferin Street and Eglinton Avenue, each with a loaded handgun, and fired six shots through the driver’s window at point blank range.
After the shots were fired, the killers ran away to a waiting white SUV.
A Canada-wide warrant for Whyte’s arrest was issued in September 2017. It wasn’t until August 2019 that he was arrested in Atlanta and was extradited back to Canada a month later.
While testifying in his own defence, Whyte denied he had anything to do with Pinnock’s murder, claiming he left the country because at the end of June 2017, he was told that he was wanted by Toronto police for charges airing from the Project Kronic investigation.
Fearing he would be sent back to jail, he crossed the border and went to New York City and later travelled south to Atlanta.
Justice Bawden rejected the evidence given by Whyte, calling him a witness “unwilling or unable to tell the truth” who, on numerous occasions, “falsely claimed ignorance regarding essential matters.”
Calling it an entirely circumstantial case, Bawden pointed to a hoodie with Whyte’s DNA on the cuff that was found near the scene and the fact that Whyte’s cellphone was turned off for 28 hours around the time of the murder, highly unusual for the drug dealer.
The phone had been his primary connection to his family, social services and drug clients for six months.
Bawden also rejected Whyte’s explanation for leaving the country, inexplicably cutting off all contact with his family, including a loving relationship with the mother of his child and his son.
In comparing surveillance video to pictures of Whyte, Bawden found “the very close similarity between the features of suspect 1 and Mr. Whyte is important circumstantial evidence which corroborates the identification of Akil Whyte as suspect 1.”
Bawden also spoke to the absence of motive in the case.
“There was no preceding quarrel or confrontation. This murder appeared to be an outright assassination. The failure of the Crown to prove a motive, considered in isolation, does not impact my findings concerning the identification of the killer,” he explained.
Bawden said that it was clear the murder was planned and deliberate given Whyte turned his phone off by 1 p.m. before Pinnock left Hamilton for Toronto.
“The movements of the white SUV, the coordinated actions of the two shooters and the evidence of a rehearsed plan of escape leaves me with no doubt that this was a planned and deliberate killing,” Bawden said.
“There are many gaps in the evidence concerning how the killers knew that Leonard Pinnock would be parked at the plaza that night, and why he was targeted.”
Police have never arrested the second shooter nor the driver of the white SUV. Outside court, David McLean, Leonard Pinnock’s father, had a message for the families of the two outstanding suspects.
“These guys. These two individuals, their mom or dad, or even they have a younger brother, younger sister, if they know that these individuals did this horrendous crime, come clean with it,” said McLean.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for June.