BURSTBoth defence and Crown counsel gave closing arguments Wednesday in the second-degree murder trial of the man accused of stabbing and killing Surrey’s Tori Dunn in June of 2024 in an alleged home invasion in the Port Kells home she shared with boyfriend Trafford Wace.
Adam Troy Mann, 43, is charged in connection with Dunn’s June 16, 2024 death. He has pleaded not guilty, and took the stand on Tuesday (Oct. 20) to testify in his own defence.
Mann told court when he got off a bus approximately 2.4 kilometres from Dunn’s home that night, he did so because he got into a disagreement with another passenger on the bus, and that he was unfamiliar with the neighbourhood, where he testified he found a kitchen knife and cellphone lying by the road later that evening.
On Wednesday (Oct. 21) in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster, defence lawyer Paul McMurray spoke first, urging the jury to consider that someone is presumed innocent until the Crown satisfies “beyond a reasonable doubt” they have committed the crime they are charged with.
“What is beyond a reasonable doubt? It means — and again, (B.C. Supreme Court Justice David Layton) will give you instructions about this … and you should take those instructions and not what I say, but in summary, what it means is that you need to be very certain before you can find Mr. Mann guilty of the charge that’s before you,” McMurray told the jury. “You cannot decide the case based on gut feeling, on suspicion, on anything other than a dispassionate analysis of the evidence and determination of whether or not that evidence is enough to make you certain of his guilt.”
McMurray focused on Wace’s initial description of Mann, noting he compared Mann to NHL hockey player Connor McDavid and YouTube personality Shane Dawson, both of whom are white, while Mann, court heard, is half-black and half-Indigenous.
He also drew attention to how police investigated the killing, why Mann was arrested when he didn’t fully fit the description given, and the CCTV video surveillance police collected from nearby homes.
“What happens is Mr. Mann is walking at a regular pace when he’s stopped by the police. He stops, doesn’t try to flee. But he’s arrested. He identifies himself, real name, and he’s arrested. He doesn’t fit the description, does he? He’s not a Caucasian male, he’s not wearing grey pants. He’s wearing black pants. He’s not wearing a hoodie, not wearing a toque, and he doesn’t look anything like Shane Dawson or Connor McDavid, but he stopped,” McMurray said.
After that, police “stopped looking for suspects,” McMurray told court.
“Later on during the investigation, (police) start gathering CCTV footage, not of other people in the neighbourhood, but of Mr. Mann,” he said.
He also recalled how Wace testified the intruder in his and Dunn’s home that night “fiddled” with a sliding door handle as he tried to leave the home after Wace interrupted an altercation between the intruder and Dunn.
“Any fingerprints of Mr. Mann? Not a one anywhere in that house … (there is) nothing to connect him with ever being inside that house.”
McMurray pointed out that Mann was not running in any of the CCTV footage shown, that he was trying to hide from the police because of an earlier altercation on a bus, and also, because he was struggling with addiction at the time, and admitted to using crack cocaine that night.
“So, yeah, he’s trying to avoid arrest by the police. But not because he’s killed Tori Dunn, but because he’s trying to avoid being arrested for the assault on the bus. That makes perfect sense,” McMurray said.
He also wondered about the lack of blood at the scene of a stabbing, and noted there was no blood found on Mann’s shoes or pants.
In regards to DNA evidence found on the knife — Mann previously testified he found a kitchen knife and cellphone by the road near Dunn’s home that night — and the hoodie Mann discarded nearby, McMurray noted DNA isn’t necessarily conclusive.
“We’ve all watched CSI or other shows on television, and it’s sort of like, well, DNA is the magic bullet. You find DNA on a weapon or something like that, bingo, that’s it. That’s it, case solved. Well, it’s not quite that simple,” McMurray said. “Because we know that DNA gets on objects for various reasons. As people handle it, it is transferred from one person to another in the course of handling an object. There’s a lot of ways that it can happen. We also know that it is not conclusive of when DNA is located on an object. (We) can’t tell how long it’s been there.”
McMurray also told the jury, “You’re being asked to put a lot of faith in expert evidence,” but added, “experts are not infallible.”
When Mann said he “saw something shiny” and found a knife and cellphone by the road, that would explain his DNA on the knife handle, McMurray said. Although the knife blade had Tori Dunn’s blood on it, there was also an unknown DNA profile on the knife handle.
He also questioned the DNA databases used by RCMP experts, the ethnicities of population in those databases, and the numbers of people in each database, and urged the jury to remember Mann’s history when considering his testimony.
“Mr. Mann is a man from a disadvantaged background, lack of education, who’s had problems with substance abuse all his life,” McMurray said. “He’s not a professional witness.”
McMurray said “there’s too many holes” in Crown’s case against Mann.
“Those holes should lead you to think, I cannot, in good conscience, find Mr. Mann guilty of this offence.”
After the morning break, it was Crown counsel Tim Livingston’s turn for closing remarks.
“You’ve heard Mr. Mann’s counsel tell you why you should have a reasonable doubt that the Crown has proved the charge. Now I have the opportunity to explain why we say the Crown has proven that Adam Mann is guilty of second-degree murder of Tori Dunn,” Livingston said. “From the Crown’s perspective, the real issue you’ll have to decide when you retire to the jury room is not whether or not Ms. Dunn was killed, or whether or not the person who killed Ms. Dunn did so deliberately. The evidence, we say, proves that the real issue from the Crown’s perspective is whether Adam Mann is the person who killed Tori Dunn.”
He noted the onus of proof “lies on the Crown,” saying Crown must first prove there was an unlawful act.
“The unlawful act we allege in this case is the offence of assault to (a) woman. And to prove that, we have to establish that Ms. Dunn’s killer applied force to her, that the force was applied — applied intentionally, that Ms. Dunn didn’t consent to the force intentionally applied, that the person who assaulted Ms. Dunn knew she didn’t consent, and then that person used a weapon” Livingston said. “(We) should have little difficulty concluding that force was applied to Ms. Dunn. I say that because Trafford Wace told you he came out of the bathroom and he saw a stranger in the living room with Ms. Dunn. She told him, quote, ‘He f–king stabbed me,’ unquote. And of course, we know that Ms. Dunn was stabbed.”
Dunn was stabbed four times, Livingston reminded the jury, with two injuries on her hands described as defensive wounds, an injury to her right shoulder, and an 18-centimetre deep wound to her abdomen, “a wound that killed her.”
There should be no question whether the person who applied force to Dunn intended to do so, Livingston said.
“As a matter of common sense, when we do things, it’s because we intend to.”
There should also be no question as to whether Dunn consented to being stabbed, he continued.
“A person doesn’t try to defend themselves if they are consenting to the force being applied.”
“You also have to decide that the unlawful act committed by Tori Dunn’s assailant caused her death. This is another element of the offence of second-degree murder, although I’ll suggest (this) will be easy for you to conclude,” said Livingston.
The four wounds show that Dunn’s assailant “either meant to kill her or meant to cause her bodily harm that was likely to kill her, and was reckless about whether she died or not. It’s why we say Ms. Dunn’s assailant killed her deliberately and should be convicted of secondary murder.”
Mann testified in his own defence, and Livingston told the jury they “should reject almost all of his evidence from the time he says he got off the bus until the time he was detained by (a Surrey Police Service constable).”
“His evidence was vague, improbable, and at times inconsistent with objective facts,” Livingston said. “The phrase, ‘I don’t know,’ was a frequent visitor to his testimony, particularly when he was being asked to provide details of what happened.”
Although Mann testified his history of crack cocaine use affected his memory, Livingston said that should cause skepticism for jurors.
“We say that taking his evidence at its possible best, Mr. Mann’s poor memory should cause you to view it skeptically. But the reliability of Mr. Mann’s evidence isn’t the biggest reason you should reject it. Simply put, his evidence wasn’t believable. Key aspects of it defied logic and common sense, evolved as his testimony went on, (and) was inconsistent with objective evidence,” said Livingston.
Mann initially testified when he got off the bus approximately 2.4 kilometres from Dunn’s home that night, that he was looking for another bus stop or a place to hide due to the altercation on the bus, Livingston said.
“For him to suggest there were no other bus stops between that location at 192 Street and 96th Avenue and Ms. Dunn’s residence beggars belief,” Livingston said.
Instead of making an effort to change his appearance, or hide in the industrial area where he got off the bus where businesses were closed for the night, Mann wandered around and into the neighbourhood of 182A Street, Livingston said.
“It was pointed out to him that there were plenty of trees and bushes along 182A Street to hide in. He gave the frankly ludicrous answer that it was, quote, ‘Too bushy to hide in,’ unquote. And when he was asked, wouldn’t something bushy be exactly what you’d want to hide in, his evidence shifted. He answered, ‘I was trying to find a bus stop, and somewhere to hide close by. The need for the bus stop to be nearby his potential hiding spot only came after he was confronted with the reality that he had bypassed a number of potential hiding spots,” said Livingston. “All this is to say to you that you should disbelieve Mr. Mann’s evidence of what happened between him getting off the bus and crossing 182A Street towards Tori Dunn’s residence.”
Mann also testified he ran when he heard sirens, Livingston said, but pointed out that in all of the CCTV footage collected, he was walking, not running.
Mann did remove and discard his hoodie, he continued, but not until more than an hour-and-a-half after he got off the bus.
“When we see Mr. Mann walking down 98 Avenue taking his hoodie off, it’s video that captures his movements from after Tori Dunn being stabbed,” Livingston said, referring to CCTV video footage. “And we say this is the real reason Mr. Mann is taking off his hoodie. It’s because he knew he’d stabbed Tori Dunn, and he decided to either change his appearance or get rid of clothing that might tie him to the scene of a crime. It’s not because of some altercation on a bus … it’s because of what happened minutes before.”
Mann would have the jury believe that some other person had gone into Dunn’s home, stabbed her, left, and ditched the knife and phone they’d taken from the house, and did so with enough time to spare that they weren’t seen by Mann when he “happened upon” the knife and phone, Livingston continued.
“Think of the coincidences that had to happen for this timeline to make sense. For some other person to abandon Ms. Dunn’s home and to get rid of the items that they’d taken either on or next to a paved area, for Mr. Mann to not see that person before he happened upon the knife and phone at the side of the road, also soon after Ms. Dunn was attacked, so soon before Mr. Mann shows up again on video … the story simply doesn’t make sense when you view it in light of the objective evidence in this case,” said Livingston.
Livingston also clarified that, when Wace was describing the intruder looking like McDavid or Dawson, on three occasions, Wace was quick to point out that he was mainly referring to the style of beard those men had, as opposed how much they may or may not have looked like the intruder.
In fact, Wace’s description got several significant details right, in light of what he’d just experienced, Livingston said, such as his height, build, and the fact he was wearing a hoodie and a toque, which Mann previously testified he thought he also “tossed” at some point that night.
Livingston touched again on how the knife, found just north of Dunn’s home, had both her DNA on the blade and Mann’s DNA and a mixed profile on the handle.
“We say that Mr. Mann’s DNA was on that knife handle not because he picked it up at the side of the road, but because he had it in his hand, and he had it in his hand when he used it to stab Tori Dunn,” Livingston said.
Police obtained surveillance video from several residences from that night, “but nothing in his evidence suggests the police only obtained video showing Mr. Mann,” Livingston said. “I ask you to ignore that suggestion (from defence counsel) because it’s not grounded in the evidence before you.”
Livingston also went over where and when Mann discarded his hoodie, which had Dunn’s DNA on the sleeve, and where her cellphone was found.
“When you consider the real objective evidence in this case, we say it’s clear that it ties Mr. Mann to Miss Dunn’s death, and it proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he was her killer,: he said. “His explanations for why he got rid of his hoodie and how his DNA ended up on the phone and knife are simply not believable. They shouldn’t raise a reasonable doubt in your mind. You should convict Adam Mann of the charge of second-degree murder.”
Layton then gave instructions to the jury prior to their deliberation.
It is unknown how long the jury will deliberate.