Federal parolee charged with girlfriend's murder makes brief court appearance

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The federal parolee accused of the shocking murder of his girlfriend visiting his halfway house in Toronto last month made a brief court appearance Friday.

Aaron Shea, who faces a first-degree murder charge in the shooting death of Alisha Brooks, appeared by video from jail in his prison-issue orange jumpsuit as court heard that a Crown prosecutor hasn’t been assigned to his case and so his defence lawyer has yet to receive any disclosure.

“We’re concerned about the delay at this point,” said paralegal Alicia Clarke, who was acting for lawyer Ehsan Ghebrai.

Shea, 33, was on statutory release after completing two-thirds of his sentence for a previous domestic assault and was living in the Walter Huculak House’s Crossroads Program, run the John Howard Society, on Jones Ave., near Danforth Ave.

Brooks, 34, was reportedly fired at multiple times, but frantically managed to get out the front door before collapsing on the sloping front lawn at the facility.

Sources told the Sun‘s Joe Warmington that Brooks was Shea’s current girlfriend and had permission to be in the halfway house from the professionals supervising his release from prison. She was cooking a meal in the kitchen when she first came under fire.

According to the Correctional Service of Canada, Shea was serving a three-year-and-one-month sentence at the time for two counts of assault, fail to comply, possession of a weapon contrary to prohibition order and break and enter.

Sources said he was initially charged in 2020 with attempting to murder another woman but that was reduced to an assault conviction when the case came to court two years later.

CSC has said it has launched an investigation.

Shea will be back in court Jan. 24.

mmandel@postmedia.com