Accused woman was 'a dupe' in killing of drug dealer: Defence lawyer
Ashley Bourget pleaded not guilty in the death of Grant Norton
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The woman on trial for the first-degree murder of a drug dealer whose body was found in a barrel near the Thames River was used as a “dupe” for the actual perpetrators of the crime, defence counsel said Wednesday.
The lawyer for Ashley Bourget, who pleaded not guilty in the death of Grant Norton, a drug dealer with ties to a Hamilton crime family, pinned the blame for the killing of the 59-year-old in July 2020 on other people, and accused them of planting evidence at the scene to incriminate her client, during closing remarks Wednesday.
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“Ashley was a person who was set up to take the fall for this crime. . . . They used Ashley as a dupe. They used her house as a crime scene. They left her with a dead body. They left her with all the incriminating evidence,” defence counsel Mary Cremer said.
“It allowed them to walk away with no fuss, no muss. . . . They left her with a big problem, and a big mess.”
Norton’s decomposing body was found in a plastic barrel near the Thames River on July 19, 2020.
The barrel was dumped not far from Bourget’s Adelaide Street South apartment, where the Crown says Norton, 59, was tortured, beaten and stabbed to death on July 6, 2020.
Police found blood on the walls and ceiling of the apartment and on a discarded couch, an aluminum baseball bat and a hatchet wrapped in plastic during a search of Bourget’s home.
The jury has heard Norton was lured to the Adelaide Street South apartment by Bourget, 41, under the pretense of a drug buy.
Bourget testified she was asked by an associate, Adam Wade, to summon Norton because the 59-year-old owed Wade money and there was an organized crime bounty to return him to Hamilton so he could testify at another trial and take responsibility for the charges.
“Ashley wanted the opportunity to earn some money and agreed to get Grant Norton to come to her home,” Cremer said in her closing address to the jury.
“At no point in time was there ever any thought, was there ever any knowledge on the part of Ashley Bourget that Grant Norton would be robbed and killed.”
Bourget testified Wade, brandishing a gun, and other masked individuals came to her apartment shortly after Norton arrived. She testified they were responsible for Norton’s death and she was ordered to stay out of the room and watch TV with the volume up.
“From the moment Adam entered Ashley’s home, he took over,” Cremer said. “After that, Ashley has no control over anything in her house.”
In her closing statements, Cremer accused Wade of planting evidence in an unsecured garbage bin at Bourget’s home, including Norton’s phone and the hatchet that was wrapped in clear plastic and placed in a brown pillow case.
“It is reasonable for you to draw the inference that, at some point, Adam Wade planted both the phone and hatchet in Ashley’s outside garbage bin,” she said.
Cremer said the motive and theory put forth by the Crown, that Bourget murdered Norton because of three past sexual assaults that occurred in her 20s, “makes no sense whatsoever.”
“It doesn’t make any sense that Ashley Bourget would set out to kill Grant Norton several years after she had been sexually assaulted by him.”
Bourget’s actions after Norton’s killing are consistent with the actions of someone who has been “sandbagged and unfairly thrown into the middle of this crime,” Cremer said.
“She freaked out,” and tried to get in contact with Wade, Cremer said, adding the panicked, haphazard details of the crime are inconsistent with someone who had intended to kill Norton.
“Why would you invite them over to your house and leave yourself a trail of horrific incriminating evidence?” Cremer said. “It makes absolutely no sense at all. It doesn’t accord with our nature of common sense. It doesn’t accord with our sense of human nature.”
Closing statements continue Thursday.
jbieman@postmedia.com
@JenatLFPress
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