A jury exonerated Joshua Sarroino, who was accused of committing a cold-blooded murder in a restaurant in the Dix30 retail center more than four years ago.
After Justice Pierre Labrie of the Superior Court of Quebec gave his last instructions on Friday, the jury returned its decision at the Montreal courthouse on Sunday afternoon.
Sarroino, 29, was accused of killing Éric Francis De Souza in the first degree. The deceased was shot in the back of the head on May 10, 2019, when he was dining with many guests to honor a birthday. The shooting was filmed from two separate viewpoints by cameras placed inside the Sofia restaurant, but the shooter was hiding his identity.
The shooter entered the restaurant, fired one shot, then quickly left since he appeared to know exactly where De Souza was seated.
Outside the restaurant, surveillance cameras caught the assailant running away from the site of the crime and documented his progress. The shooter’s handgun and the green plastic shopping bag he wore over his right hand were found on a terrace outside the 3 Brasseurs restaurant, which was on the route he used to depart the scene of the crime.
The prosecution underlined that the green plastic bag was connected to the shooting since Sarroino’s DNA and fingerprints were located there. The silver revolver’s handle was also revealed to have Sarroino’s DNA. When the single shot was fired, small bits of the grocery bag detached from it. Pieces of the bag were discovered at the table where De Souza was shot, according to evidence produced by The Crown.
Last week, defense attorneys Diana Sitoianu and Danièle Roy, who represented Sarroino, informed the jury during their final statements that more people’s fingerprints were discovered on the supermarket bag.
Roy also questioned the Crown’s argument that Sarroino fled from Dix30 in a white car after the shooting and that, four minutes later, he burned the car on fire in a Brossard neighborhood before getting into a black car and speeding off. Sarroino was allegedly observed driving the identical black automobile after the murder while under police observation, according to a portion of the Crown’s case.