SAINT JOHN, N.B. - Darrell Upshaw screamed, "They're trying to kill me," as he was attacked by others and left bleeding and dying in the street last winter, a jury was told Thursday.
Retired police officer David Jones testified he was awoken by a commotion in the street on March 11 and went to his apartment window to see a man "screaming at the top of his lungs" as he ran onto the street with two males in pursuit.
The men quickly caught up and an attack began.
Scott Arthur Taylor, 20, is on trial in Court of Queen's Bench for second-degree murder in the slaying of Upshaw, 33, of Cole Harbour, N.S.
Making a double-handed swinging motion over his head, Jones testified that one of the men was carrying something that caught the light. He said it looked like a stainless steel pole and was about a metre long.
"Well, it came down on the other guy's head," he testified, adding he saw at least three blows to the upper part of the man's body.
Upshaw died of multiple sword wounds - the most horrific being a gash to his skull that began at his hairline and ran to the back of his head.
Police found a broadsword and two samurai swords in an apartment where Taylor lived with a roommate. A rack for the weapons sat on the mantle over a fireplace.
Another sword and a sawed-off semi-automatic rifle were found near Upshaw's body.
Charles Willett, who lived in the apartment across the hall from where the robbery occurred, told the jury he was awoken by a sound "like a gun going off."
He said he looked out his apartment window and also saw a man run across the street with others in pursuit.
Willett said the man being chased stopped at a fence and the others began beating him.
"It didn't seem like he was doing anything to protect himself. It didn't seem like he could do anything," he said.
Witnesses describe attack in Saint John, N.B., sword slaying
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