Crown 'shocked' after man acquitted in grandmother's death
Marlene Wilson was stabbed to death in her Waterford home in 2023.
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SIMCOE – The drama wasn’t only inside the courtroom on Tuesday night after a man was found not guilty of the murder of his 90-year-old grandmother.
“Have a good night, Mr. McGuire,” Jordaine Wilson, waiting in the courthouse lobby for a ride home, called out to Crown attorney Brian McGuire as the lawyer hurried out the Simcoe courthouse following the verdict Tuesday night.
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McGuire, who was clearly agitated, shot back: “Boy, oh boy, you’re one lucky man. I’m shocked by that verdict. It’s a strange verdict.”
But, said McGuire, there is no basis to appeal.
“I’m sure he was upset after all the hard work he put in,” said Wilson of the exchange. “This was totally unexpected.”
It took the jury about eight hours to decide Wilson, 36, wasn’t responsible for the death of his grandmother Marlene Wilson, who was stabbed three times in the chest on Feb. 12, 2023, rendering it a murder mystery.
Wilson had pleaded not guilty to a charge of second-degree murder.
After the jury left the courtroom, Wilson thanked the judge, a police officer unlocked the shackles from his ankles, and he shared some quiet words with his lawyers.
“I’m elated,” said defence lawyer Robb MacDonald. “I think the jury clearly did their job when applying the burden of proof. I appreciate their efforts.”
Softspoken and composed throughout the trial and when the verdict was read, Wilson said he was “extremely happy.”
Marlene Wilson, who weighed just slightly more than 80 pounds, was found dead in a bathtub of warm water and bubbles in the early morning on Feb. 12, 2023, in her home on Mechanic Street in Waterford, a community 25 kilometres south of Brantford, but evidence showed she had been stabbed to death in her bed.
Bloody paper toweling was found in the bathroom, in the household washing machine with some of her clothing, in a wastebasket near Jordaine’s room and wrapped around a knife under his bed.
A forensic expert testified about a bloody fingerprint found in the bathroom, saying all others in the house except for Jordaine could be excluded as the one who left it there.
There were three other people living in the Waterford home at the time of Marlene’s death: his brother Malik Thomas; their mother Wendy Thomas; and family friend Katie McPherson, who helped care for Marlene.
In his closing statement, MacDonald said others were named in Marlene’s will, others owed her money, and others had the opportunity to kill the woman.
MacDonald told the jury it made no sense to think Wilson would kill the grandmother he loved after they spent the previous evening working on a family history project, watching the news together and him making her hot chocolate.
“You’re being asked to hang a murder conviction on a story that defies common sense,” said MacDonald. “There is no motive, no camera footage, no witnesses. This story is absurd.”
In his instruction to the jury prior to its deliberation on Tuesday, Justice Michael McArthur said the Crown contended Jordaine “stabbed and senselessly murdered the 90-year-old while awake and conscious” in her bed and then made a “stressful, disorganized” attempt to clean up.
McGuire pointed to “major inconsistencies” in Wilson’s testimony, including changing the time he said he got up on the morning of his grandmother’s death by about half an hour. Two-and-a-half years earlier, he told police he got up at about 7 a.m., a move the lawyer said was to put some doubt in the jury’s mind about McPherson.
And, said the Crown, Jordaine originally told police he hadn’t entered the bathroom but only peeked in and left, saying he couldn’t handle the sight of his dead grandmother.
In court, he said he went in, knelt by the tub, tried to wake the woman, touched one of the wounds on her chest, wiped away the blood on his finger with some tissue and may have flushed it down the toilet.
“Why,” asked McGuire. “Because he has to try to explain one of the most damning pieces of evidence – the fingerprint.”
But that was all behind Wilson on Tuesday night as he waited in the courthouse lobby for his lawyers to give him a ride to his mother’s Waterford home.
He said he had spent 19 months in total in the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (Barton Jail) since his arrest.
“My family has been through a lot,” said Wilson.
Asked whether he continued to have support from all his family members, Wilson said he’d “find out this week.”
“I’m still trying to take in what just happened.”
With files from Susan Gamble
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