A Montreal father who was targeted by three thugs was shot in the back of the head in front of his wife and children, the opening of an investigation into the alleged executions was announced Thursday.
” [Les accusés] Come, stop, they break down the door, they shoot and they run away, all within ten minutes,” said Nadia Berube of the Crown at the Gouin Judicial Services Center in Montreal.
Sitting in the accused’s box, Omar Araghoune, Gretzky Marcellus and Jeffrey Romel Nauzinor, aged 28 to 35, remained silent as the prosecutor described the murder they allegedly committed on September 16, 2019.
That morning, Oswaldo Pineda Melgar was getting his four- and nine-year-old children ready for school when three men broke down the door of his home in LaSalle.
“They’re going to rob us,” the 26-year-old victim shouted as he took refuge in a room.
Mr. Pineda Melgar’s spouse would have done the same with their daughter, and their son joined them shortly after. By this time, the three accused would have rushed inside the house.
Nausinore, nicknamed “Satan,” is said to have grabbed the man by the hair, while Marcellus, nicknamed “Immaculate,” beat him and ordered him to reveal where the “stock” was hidden.
A ball to the head
At that moment Aragune was in the kitchen where he seemed to be searching for something according to the suit.
However, the case took a tragic turn when Nausinore allegedly pulled out a gun to shoot the victim in the back of the head.
“When the terrible shooting was done, [toute la famille] It was in the bedroom, the crown explained. A bullet in the head, it doesn’t forgive. »
Archive photo
In September 2019, a relative of the victim offered tearful condolences near the scene of the murder, on rue Bedard in LaSalle borough.
Rental cars
Soon, the thugs fled in two cars, a blue Land Rover and a gray Malibu. But if they thought they were getting away with it, it wasn’t counting the hard work of investigators in tracking down the suspects.
With the help of surveillance cameras, the police were able to reconstruct the trail of the killers. Investigation revealed that they were GPS-equipped vehicles on hire.
“The vehicles were repossessed after the murder, but before the end of the rental agreement,” the Crown assured.
Nauzinor, for his part, would have left Montreal to fly to Calgary, using a false name.
As the prosecution explained to the jury, it took months of investigation to arrest the defendants.
Archive photo
Police security was placed around the house where the murder took place.
A long investigation
And clearly, the police did not skimp on the methods, as the investigation involved wiretaps, spinning and even microphones hidden in residences and vehicles.
A forensic biologist is also expected to report DNA found on evidence.
“Mr. Pineda Melgar was targeted, he was not targeted at random”, the Crown assured, adding that the accused were finally arrested in April 2020.
Nauzinor and Marcellus are charged with first-degree murder, while Araghoune faces one count of manslaughter. They are represented by Messrs. Alexandre Karel, Jean-Pierre Sharp and Gunnar Dubey.
The jury trial, led by Judge Mario Longpre, is expected to last several weeks.
