Getting Away ... With Murder

"This question is really the only question in this case."
"Did Mohamed Sail cause Jeremy Cook's death? There sits within this question the identity of Jeremy Cook's killer."
Justice Peter Hockin

"Mohamed Sail -- in finding Jeremy Cook's cellphone, decided to shoot him dead instead of simply giving it back."
"It [the first shot] didn't kill him. It was the shot to the chest that killed him."
"[The autopsy revealed that the second bullet that hit Cook destroyed the blood vessels to the heart].
Jeremy wouldn't be able to cry out after second shot."
"[Half a kilometre away, Jeremy's sister Kayla was frantic. She dialed 911 as she chased after Jeremy and the car. When police found her, the app was still tracking her brother's phone, showing its exact location...]"
"Police recovered it [the iphone] between two houses near a downspout."
Middlesex County Deputy Crown attorney Fraser Ball

Jeremy Cook was shot and killed after using an app to track down his lost smartphone in London, Ont. (London Police Service)

Imagine you're 18, and you've left your cellphone inadvertently on the backseat of a taxi. It was never returned. Someone obviously picked it up. So Jeremy Cook of Brampton, Ontario decided to see if he could discover who had his cellphone. He enlisted the help of his older sister Kayla after the phone had been tracked. Kayla drove her brother to a McDonald's restaurant where a car at the pick-up window had been identified by an online tracking app as the current venue of the cellphone.

The siblings, brother and sister, approached the car. They were certain that once confronted, whoever had the phone would simply hand it over. Kayla entered her brother's phone's security code when Mohamed Sail 26, refused to surrender the phone. As soon as she did that, Sail's companion who was driving the Mazda, Muhab Sultan, 23, stepped on the gas. While Kayla fell backward her brother, hanging on to the car was carried along as it sped off, his feet skidding the pavement.

Arriving at another nearby parking lot, Jeremy Cook's arms still around the car's central pillar, Sultan stopped, shut the engine and seconds later two gunshots rang out and someone was heard to shout, "drive, drive". Muhab Sultan, as it happened was known to police, with a long criminal record. And one of the men in that Mazda had a .40-calibre, semi-automatic handgun, prohibited in Canada. Jeremy Cook bled to death where he fell.

Mohamed Sail, 23, leaves the London, Ont., courthouse following Monday's not-guilty verdict. When asked for his response to the verdict he said: 'I would like to thank God.' (Colin Butler/CBC)

Two weeks later, police were still searching for the men. The Mazda had crashed soon after the shooting. And Sultan went into hiding in Ottawa. Two weeks following the killing of Jeremy Cook, Muhab Sultan was pursued by police as he drove toward the Rideau River. He left the car he was driving and dove into the river, and there he drowned. Leaving Mohamed Sail as the remaining suspect.

Mohamed Sail walked from where the crashed Mazda was left right after Jeremy Cook had been shot to death, and he was seen by witnesses. He turned himself in to police after a warrant for his arrest was issued in London, Ontario. And for the past two years he has been in custody. In a London courthouse his 11-day trial on a charge of second-degree murder of Jeremy Cook took place. His defence lawyer argued that Muhab Sultan was the shooter.

Yet Mohamed Sail was heard in a police phone intercept a few months earlier while living in Calgary with his mother, attempting to buy a "Glock 40" -- a .40-caibre handgun. And Crown attorney Ball argued at trial that the physical evidence painted with certainty a scenario where Sail held the gun and killed Jeremy Cook. The bullets originated from the passenger side of the car.

The casings, he explained would have expended to the right, while a man that witnesses said resembled Sultan was outside the car and was seen to have no gun in his possession. Sail was not heard from at his trial, his defence team relying on portraying Sultan as the shooter, not their client. "He was the shooter and he was running for his life", attempting to avoid police in the car chase that ended when he leaped into the river and drowned.

The jury at Mohamed Sail's trial deliberated for two hours. In the final analysis the jury comprised of six men and six women felt that there was insufficient evidence to incriminate Sail, and found him not guilty, to the incredulity of Jeremy Cook's family. As Mohamed Sail walked out of the courtroom, found innocent of the charge of murder and free to go in the company of his mother, she proclaimed "Justice has been made", while her son was preoccupied, speaking on his cellphone.

Supporters of Jeremy Cook's family gather on the steps of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Monday where the second-degree murder trial of Mohamed Sail is taking place. (Colin Butler/CBC News)