A jury A acquitted a Toronto woman in trials for the second degree murder of a Woman from Caledon, Ontario, 41 years old, whose body was found drunk in a suitcase.
After less than a day of deliberation, the jury returned Tuesday with the non -guilty verdict, concluding that Carita Jackson had not murdered Varsha Gajula between August 21 and August 23, 2021.
On the morning of August 25, 2021, the police received a call concerning a suspicious package located at the back of a company near Keele Street and Rogers Road in Toronto. When the police opened the suitcase, they found the body of Gajula.
The cause of death: head and neck injuries, including blunt trauma and multiple injuries.
A video canvas led the investigators to 1010 Humber Boulevard South, less than two km from the place where the suitcase was found.
Video surveillance has shown that two tenants withdraw the suitcase two days earlier. They were then arrested and charged.
One of the men was acquitted. The other, Christopher Daley, the father of Jackson’s child, pleaded guilty to the accessory after killing for his role in the elimination of the body. Daley testified for the crown at the trial, pointing his finger on Jackson.
Daley told Jury Jackson, who lived a floor above him in the building, had hit his door on August 21, 2021. He said that she had told her that she had just killed “a girl”.
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He said they then climbed in his apartment where he had seen the body of a woman wrapped in garbage bags and blood. Daley testified that he and Jackson put the woman’s body in a suitcase and told him to clean the apartment before her departure and went to a downtown camp.
During the counter-examination, Jackson’s lawyer, Ashley Audet, asked Daley several times to find out if he was lying on the alleged confession of Jackson.
Audet also stressed that Daley had 50 previous convictions for drug trafficking.
Jackson’s lawyers, Audet and Katrina Friesen, spoke to Global News after the verdict and explained that a condemnation for manslaughter was not accessible to the jury.
“It was agreed given the specific facts and circumstances of this trial, it was agreed between the defense and the crowns according to which in the light of evidence, in particular the pathologist with regard to the nature of the injuries suffered by Mrs. Gajula that the involuntary was not properly available in verdict. In the end, this left the two options: either guilty of second degree or non -guilty murder, “said Audet.
Audet said that for the jury to be able to make Jackson’s culprit, they should have accepted Daley proof about his alleged confession.
“In the end, he was a very difficult witness. He has a very long criminal record. But the biggest challenge, I think and what the jury finally accepted is that he was the only witness who pointed his finger on Mrs. Jackson.
“The only direct evidence came from Mr. Daley and there were critical elements of his evidence specifically with regard to the events surrounding his alleged confession which were not only incompatible that between his various races of history, but the critical elements were also contradicted by other elements of evidence,” said Audet.
“It is our position, in the end, that it would be extremely difficult for a jury to note that, in the light of all its inconsistencies, that, in the light of his lies and his will admitted to lie to the courts when it benefits him … How can you believe that this particular version that he said to the court was the truth,” added Audet, who said that the verdict thought that the jury
Jackson, forty -one, has been in detention since his arrest. His defense team says that the verdict is a justification.
“She has maintained her innocence from the start. She was arrested on August 30, 2021. It was more than three and a half years (there are) and she has been waiting for this day for a very long time, “said Audet.
Daley has already been sentenced after pleading guilty to the accessory after murder.
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