The trial of a young man accused of stabbing a cashier at a Montreal supermarket opened Wednesday with a rocky start.
Randy Tshilumba, 21, is charged with the first-degree murder of 20-year-old Clemence Beaulieu-Patry, who was killed inside the Maxi grocery store on Cremazie Blvd. near Papineau Ave. in April 2016.
The suspect fled the scene. Tshilumba was later arrested at his home in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood.
The first witnesses were summoned to the Montreal courthouse Wednesday for the trial, which is expected to last five weeks. A jury was selected last week.
Those witnesses weren’t able to testify, though, because the prosecution was forced to delay. Due to a back injury, Crown prosecutor Catherine Perreault was not in court and could not give her opening statements or start calling witnesses.
Judge Helene Di Salvo decided to push back the opening of the case to Friday. Still, the judge gave her usual opening instructions to the jury – how to listen to a case, how to pass judgment and most importantly, focus on the evidence presented to them in court and not anything they might have heard outside the courtroom.
Dozens of witnesses were inside the grocery store when the assailant pulled out a knife and stabbed the CEGEP student in the neck, back and slit both wrists.
She died at the scene in front of horrified onlookers while her father was waiting in the parking lot to drive her home once she finished work.
Surveillance video and photos show the attack and the suspect running away.
While police initially believed it to be a random assault, they soon discovered the suspect and victim attended the same high school. Police say she had rebuffed his romantic advances.
If convicted, Tshilumba could be sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole for 25 years.
With files from The Canadian Press
