The Sky Was Crying

2

Who’s Who?: 3

Prologue: 4

Chapter 1: EMERGENCY - 6

Chapter 2: THE INVESTIGATION BEGINS - 10

Chapter 3: MICHAEL MONCKTON - 12

Chapter 4: EVEN THE SKY WAS CRYING - 19

Chapter 5: THE CASE AGAIINST MONCKTON - 22

Chapter 6: THE TRIAL OF MICHAEL MONCKTON - 27

Chapter 7: THE CASE REACHES A CRESCENDO - 32

Chapter 8: THE VERDICT: 37

Chapter 9: “AN EGREGIOUS BREACH OF TRUST”: 44

Acknowledgements: 47

About the author: 49

Copyright: 50

CONTENTS

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WHO’S WHO?

Keagan Davis died in January of 2010 at the age of two and a half of multiple injur-ies inflicted upon him. His death was ruled a homicide.

Michael Monckton was the boyfriend of Keagan’s mother. Mr. Monckton, 26 at the time, was alone with Keagan on the morning the child died.

Leigh-Ann Worrall is Keagan Davis’s mother. At the time of the child’s death she went by her maiden name of Cooper.

Dan Davis is Keagan’s biological father.

Steven and Deborah Cooper are Keagan’s maternal grandparents and played a sig-nificant role during the boy’s early development.

Sarah Mallette is Dan Davis’s sister, and Catherine Carrigan is Mr. Davis’s mother. These women also participated in Keagan’s care and family life.

Tom Dingwall and Mike Horrocks are homicide detectives with Durham Regional police. They were the lead investigators in Keagan’s death.

Michael Pollanen is Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist. He conducted the autopsy on Keagan and was a key witness at trial.

Paul Murray and Kerri-Ann Kennedy are prosecutors with the Durham Region Crown attorney’s office.

Ray Boggs and Bradley Pearson are defence lawyers who represented Mr. Monck-ton.

Alex Sosna is a judge with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice who presided over the trial.

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Prologue

Something was wrong. Keagan Davis wasn’t himself.

The little boy, two and a half, was visiting his dad and extended family in Osh-awa. It was Christmas 2009 and there were lights and dinner and gifts. But Keagan, the kid who always had a smile for everyone, was strangely downcast.

“He was very shy, withdrawn,” Keagan’s aunt, Sarah Mallette, recalled later.

Keagan, a slightly-built child with large, dark eyes, would at times be playful and engaged, but the next minute he’d be off by himself, sitting on the stairs, said Ms. Mallette, sister of Dan Davis, the child’s biological father.

Later that night Ms. Mallette asked Keagan if he’d like to try on some pajamas he’d been given as a gift. As she lifted Keagan’s shirt, she saw something alarming: A series of bruises along the boy’s lower back, where the bony protrusions of his spine were.

Ms. Mallette alerted Catherine Carrigan, Keagan’s grandmother. She too saw the bruises. They had Keagan hold up his shirt while Ms. Mallette took pictures of the bruises. As they examined Keagan they noticed something else: the hint of a bruise, above his left eye.

As Keagan slept that night Ms. Mallette took pictures of the bruising on his face. The injuries were of real concern. Nobody on Mr. Davis’s side of Keagan’s family had seen the child for several weeks, since a blow-up between Mr. Davis and the boy’s mother. No one on Dan’s side of the family subjected Keagan to corporal punishment and they had never had concerns that his mother, Leigh-Ann Worrall, did either.

About the only discipline imposed on the little boy was verbal instruction, Ms. Mallette said.

“He didn’t really require discipline,” she said. “He was too little really to do anything he shouldn’t be doing.”

The next day Keagan left, returning with his mother to the east Oshawa apart-ment she shared with her new boyfriend.

A little over a week later, on Jan. 5, 2010, Keagan Davis was dead.

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Jan. 11, 2010 -- A memorial of bears and flowers quickly appeared on the fence of the Southgate Drive house where Keagan Davis, 2, lived with his mom and her boyfriend.

Keagan would be Durham Region’s first murder victim of 2010. (Metroland photo by Ron Pietroniro)

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1 EMERGENCY

Keagan Davis shortly before his death. (Photo supplied by Leigh-Ann Worrall)

It was a few minutes past 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 5, 2010 when the young woman left her work station and made her way to the parking lot. Leigh-Ann Worrall planned to dash home to her apartment nearby in east Oshawa. That’s where her son, two-year-old Keagan, and her new boyfriend, Michael Monckton, awaited her.

Ms. Worrall, who at that time went by her maiden name of Cooper, had just begun a day shift at Minac, where she worked as an attendant for OnStar users. To get the preferred day shift, Ms. Worrall had paid her dues, undergoing retraining and then working evening and night shifts after an extended medical absence. It had been tough, but she was falling into an agreeable groove.

Ms. Worrall and Keagan had moved into a basement apartment on Southgate Drive the previous summer; in a house on a quiet, well-kept residential street, it was the first home they’d had on their own. Mr. Monckton had moved in in Octo-ber and since late November had been providing day-to-day care for Keagan while

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his mom devoted herself to catching up at work.

On this particular day, a Tuesday, Ms. Worrall had left the apartment early while Keagan and Mr. Monckton slept. She checked on Keagan in his room and heard him slumbering. She was in front of her computer monitor at Minacs by 7:59 a.m.

Checking her phone as she left work, Ms. Worrall found a text message from Mr. Monckton, asking what she wanted for lunch. She was nearing the house when she got another text. It was from Mr. Monckton again. Ms. Worrall caught her breath as she read it.

“Get home,” Mr. Monckton had typed. “Call 911.”

Ms. Worrall pulled into the driveway at 857 Southgate and rushed to the side door that led to the basement apartment. It was locked. As she fumbled for her keys, the door was opened by Mr. Monckton, who turned quickly and rushed down the stairs. Ms. Worrall followed and found him in Keagan’s room.

There was her son, lying on the floor in his pull-up diaper, eyes closed and ap-parently unconscious. Mr. Monckton, wearing just boxer shorts, crouched over the boy. He was performing CPR.

“He’s not breathing,” Mr. Monckton said.

Fighting panic, Ms. Worrall called 911.

“My son is two and a half!” she shouted at the operator. “He’s not breathing!”

Nearby, Durham police officers Matt Forget and Derek Parker were con-ducting radar duty on Harmony Road. Their attention was caught by an urgent call on the radio: A child at a home on Southgate Drive had no vital signs. Police and paramedics were being dispatched to the scene.

The cops were just a few kilometres away. They stashed their radar gun and hit the emergency lights on their cruiser, heading for 857 Southgate.

Back in the apartment, a frantic Ms. Worrall was still on the phone. The 911 operator calmly asked questions and tried to guide Mr. Monckton’s resuscitation ef-forts. “I know exactly how to do CPR,” he called out as Ms. Worrall relayed her ad-vice. But he was worried the air he breathed into the little boy’s mouth didn’t seem to be going into his lungs. Instead, Keagan’s belly was becoming distended, he said.

Mr. Monckton took the phone and described the scenario to the operator. She told him to pause and put his ear near the child’s mouth.

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“Is he breathing?” the operator asked.

There was a pause. “No,” Mr. Monckton replied. “I only saw his stomach go up and there’s a gurgling sound in his throat.”

The operator asked Mr. Monckton to check for a pulse. He did, and reported he couldn’t find one. He grew flustered.

“You’ll have to talk to Leigh-Ann. I’ve got to get this kid breathing,” he said, handing the phone back to Ms. Worrall. He went to kneel over Keagan again.

At that moment Constables Forget and Parker arrived and looked through the doorway of Keagan’s bedroom. Mr. Monckton glanced up at them.

“Where the f--- are they?” he shouted.

Moments later, the paramedics arrived and took over resuscitation efforts. The cops herded Ms. Worrall and Mr. Monckton into the kitchen. Const. Forget began asking questions, trying to ascertain the cause of Keagan’s medical distress. He asked Mr. Monckton to take him through the morning, step by step, hoping to relay to the paramedics any information that might prove helpful.

Mr. Monckton said he and Keagan had slept late, not getting up until about 11 o’clock. He said Keagan, who was potty training, had a bowel movement in the toi-let, and that the two of them had a shower. He said he’d left Keagan in his bedroom while he went to get dressed.

Mr. Monckton said he returned to Keagan’s bedroom a few minutes later to find the boy on his bed, struggling to breathe. He said he moved Keagan to the floor and began CPR.

“How is he?” Mr. Monckton wailed. “Oh my God, I don’t know what hap-pened!”

Durham Region Emergency Medical Services paramedic Darryl Eaton was at this time in Keagan’s room, trying desperately to save the little boy. Keagan had no vital signs; CPR failed to revive him. Mr. Eaton bundled the little boy over his shoulder and bounded up the steps to a waiting ambulance. As they climbed the stairs he heard strangled gasps emitting from the boy, sounds he interpreted as Kea-gan’s body struggling instinctively to breathe.

The paramedics rushed to the hospital in Oshawa, sirens screaming. Mr. Monckton hurried into the bedroom to get dressed. He and Ms. Worrall were driv-en to the hospital in a Durham police cruiser.

Keagan was rushed into an emergency treatment room where efforts to revive

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him continued. Family members were alerted and began to assemble at the hospi-tal. Among them was Keagan’s biological father, Dan Davis. He and Ms. Worrall waited anxiously for word on their little boy.

At 12:27 p.m., just a few minutes after arriving at the hospital, Keagan Davis was declared dead. A doctor spoke to Ms. Worrall and Ms. Davis in a private room. “There’s nothing more we can do,” he told them.

Ms. Worrall crumbled. Mr. Davis ran blindly from the room, his mind blank with grief and horror.

Later he and Ms. Worrall were ushered into a room where Keagan lay, lifeless. They stared in disbelief at his little body.

Ms. Worrall crawled into the bed beside Keagan. She lay there for a time, stroking his hair.

Keagan’s body was sent to Toronto for an autopsy. Stunned family members drifted away from the hospital. Missing in the aftermath, though, was Mr. Monck-ton. He had fled the hospital when news of Keagan’s death came.

But he had not returned. Michael Monckton was nowhere to be found.

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2 THE INVESTIGATION BEGINS

The investigation into Keagan’s death was assumed by the Durham police homicide department. That’s not because police assumed at the outset foul play was involved; it’s protocol for the homicide department to review any sudden death in-volving a young child.

Interviews with Keagan’s biological parents and extended family revealed no underlying health issues that might have triggered his death. The only details of the child’s final moments had been provided by Michael Monckton, the person in the apartment with Keagan on the morning of Jan. 5. But Mr. Monckton had left the Oshawa hospital after Keagan was declared dead, and hadn’t been heard from since.

Very quickly, troubling information began to surface. Pediatrician Mahmud Almadani, who had been called in when the child arrived at the hospital, noticed what he called “unusual” bruising on Keagan’s back and abdomen. While it’s com-mon for active toddlers to accumulate bruises on bony areas like shins, elbows and even foreheads, the bruising Dr. Almadani had detected was on soft tissue areas.

Dr. Almadani also noted that the colouring of some of the bruises indicated they were not fresh, but that they had been sustained some time before Keagan ar-rived at hospital.

Dr. Almadani said the child was without vital signs upon arrival at 18 minutes past noon and was never revived.

“At 12:27 I pronounced him dead,” he said.

The bruises detected at the hospital raised red flags, but it was the results of an autopsy, performed Jan. 6 in Toronto by pathologist Michael Pollanen, that set alarm bells ringing.

Dr. Pollanen identified dozens of bruises, on virtually every area of Keagan’s body – his forehead, jaw and neck, his upper and lower back and buttocks, arms and legs, and perhaps most troubling, his abdomen. There were broken bones, in-cluding both bones in the little boy’s left forearm, that had been completely broken and begun to heal. Six ribs had been broken and were in various stages of healing. Curiously, the ring fingers on both of Keagan’s hands had been broken near the hand. He had several fractured vertebrae.

There were signs of fresh contusions on the top of the boy’s head, indicated by pooling blood under his scalp. There were abrasions on his penis and scrotum.

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An internal examination of Keagan’s abdomen revealed more shocking injur-ies. There was evidence of internal bleeding and Dr. Pollanen discovered three sep-arate tears to the mesentery, an abdominal membrane; there were recent injuries, inflicted just prior to death, as well as tears that had been sustained earlier and had begun to heal. Still more tears in the mesentery had healed completely, an indica-tion they had occurred earlier still.

Dr. Pollanen concluded the cause of death was blunt abdominal trauma in a child with head injuries and other injuries. The fatal abdominal injuries, the pathol-ogist opined, had been caused by blunt trauma – either punching or stiff prodding that left numerous bruises on the boy’s skin and interior damage. The many other injuries, some showing signs of healing, were indicative of “repetitive injury with re-injury”, Dr. Pollanen said.

Some of Keagan’s injuries, such as the recent tear to the mesentery and the contusions on his scalp, occurred within minutes to hours of his death. Others, including the healed internal abdominal injuries, some bruises and healing broken bones, had been sustained over a longer period of time.

“You could reasonably say the damage we have is over a period of weeks to months,” Dr. Pollanen said later.

Of the abdominal injuries, Dr. Pollanen was clear: They had been inflicted upon the boy by someone who exerted considerable force.

“They all represent the same type of injury,” Dr. Pollanen said. “Those are blunt force abdominal injuries.”

To Durham’s homicide cops, the findings confirmed a chilling fact: Keagan Davis, two and a half years old, 38 and one half inches tall, 32 pounds, had been beaten to death.

The case was now a murder investigation.

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3 MICHAEL MONCKTON

Michael Monckton holds two-year-old Keagan Davis in this undated photo. (Photo supplied by Leigh-Ann Worrall)

In the hours after Keagan’s death, Durham police were able to speak to many of the people closest to him, including his biological parents and grandparents, those who had been in touch with the boy day to day. But one witness was missing. Michael Monckton, the only person with Keagan in the moments leading up to his death, had disappeared after the boy had been pronounced dead, and hadn’t been seen since.

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Mr. Monckton, 26, handsome and strongly built, had been involved with Kea-gan a relatively short period of time. A construction worker from Port Hope, he’d met the 24-year-old Ms. Worrall through the online dating site Plenty of Fish dur-ing the summer of 2009. They started seeing each other in late summer - their first date was at Boston Pizza - and by the fall were a couple.

Ms. Worrall moved into the Southgate apartment with Keagan in October 2009 and within a few weeks, Mr. Monckton was living there as well. For the first couple of weeks he’d rise early and head off to work. Ms. Worrall, who was working varying shifts at Minacs, relied on her mother, Deborah Cooper, to come in from Blackstock often to see to Keagan’s care while she was at work.

At the end of November, Mr. Monckton was laid off. It was then, according to Ms. Worrall, he offered to help out with Keagan. Mr. Monckton had two kids of his own. They lived with their mother.

“He asked to take care of Keagan,” Ms. Worrall recalled later. She was pleased; she felt Mr. Monckton and Keagan shared a real affection for one another. Mr. Monckton seemed to be a stand-up guy who took his responsibilities seriously. He spent time with the boy, playing video games, acting like a parent. Ms. Worrall had begun to envision life as a family. There certainly seemed to be enough affection to go around.

“Love you, Keag,” Mr. Monckton would say.

“Love you too, Michael,” the little boy would respond.

By Christmas 2009 Ms. Worrall was sure she’d met her life partner. “At that point everything was perfect,” she said. “I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with Michael.”

In the confusion after Keagan’s death, Mr. Monckton fled from the hospital. For the next several hours he wandered the streets of Oshawa, eventually making his way several miles across town to Southgate. The apartment was still full of po-lice officers gathering evidence. Mr. Monckton called his father in Port Hope and had him come pick him up.

On the way east along Hwy. 401, a despairing Mr. Monckton mused, “I should just kill myself.”

Sometime during the evening, Ms. Worrall’s father, Steven Cooper, managed to reach Mr. Monckton on his cellphone.

“Michael, where are you, man?” Mr. Cooper asked. “Leigh-Ann has lost her son. She needs you.”

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A tearful Mr. Monckton replied that he couldn’t face Leigh-Ann or the other family members. He felt terrible about not being able to revive Keagan, he said.

“He died in my arms,” Mr. Monckton sobbed. “I did everything I could.”

“We’re not blaming you, Michael,” Mr. Cooper said.

“But I won’t see my kids again,” Mr. Monckton replied.

The comment was puzzling. “If you didn’t do anything wrong, why would that happen?” Mr. Cooper asked.

Mr. Monckton didn’t respond. The call ended.

Ms. Worrall also reached Mr. Monckton by phone. “I asked him why he left the hospital,” she recalled later. “He said he couldn’t face me after he wasn’t able to get Keagan to come back.”

Later that night, Ms. Worrall made her way east from Oshawa to find her boyfriend. She learned he’d been admitted to hospital in Cobourg. She found him there, sedated and curled up on a bed.

“I went over and touched his head,” Ms. Worrall recalled. “He opened his eyes and he saw that I was standing there.”

Mr. Monckton said nothing for a time. There was no talk of Keagan. Ms. Wor-rall waited with Mr. Monckton’s sister, both of them concerned for the young man who was taking things so hard.

Later in the evening, Mr. Monckton was released from hospital. He and Ms. Worrall spent the night at his mother’s house. They spoke no more that evening about what had happened earlier in the day. Exhausted, they slept.

They awoke on the morning of Jan. 6 to find the sun streaming through the windows. They lay there for a time as the events of the previous day came back to them.

“The sun was shining and we were lying on the bed and I told Michael that Keagan was in heaven and it was going to be OK,” Ms. Worrall said later. “He told me he’d done everything he could to try and save him. He was really upset. He was taking it really hard.”

At that moment Ms. Worrall said, she had no reason to suspect foul play.

“I thought my child was sick and passed away,” she said. “I asked Michael some questions and he told me the same things he’d told me before.”

That evening Ms. Worrall was scheduled to meet with Durham police to

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make an official statement. As she prepared to head back to Oshawa, she asked Mr. Monckton if he was going to accompany her. He declined.

Ms. Worrall met that night with homicide Detective Tom Dingwall. A sea-soned investigator with a serious bearing, Det. Dingwall has a penchant for keen observation, but betrays little of what he’s thinking. The officer didn’t reveal all the details from the autopsy, but made her aware police considered Keagan’s death a homicide. And he made it clear he was most interested in speaking with Mr. Monckton.

After the interview Ms. Worrall called Mr. Monckton. “I told Michael the po-lice couldn’t tell me anything about what happened to Keagan until they had an op-portunity to speak with him. I told him if he didn’t go, I wouldn’t get any answers.”

Ms. Worrall issued an ultimatum: Until Mr. Monckton spoke to the cops, she would refuse to see him. He finally agreed to speak with Det. Dingwall the next day.

Mr. Monckton arrived at the Durham police station in downtown Oshawa at about 5:30 p.m. Jan. 7 and was met by Det. Dingwall. Mr. Monckton knew in ad-vance police were investigating Keagan’s death as a homicide; he had contacted a lawyer prior to consenting to the interview.

Det. Dingwall wasted little time. He took Mr. Monckton to the morning of Keagan’s death, asking for a detailed description of events leading up to it. Mr. Monckton told the story he’d already given to cops at the Southgate apartment, and to Leigh-Ann Worrall. He said he and Keagan had slept late, rising at about 11. He told the officer Keagan had been ill with flu-like symptoms prior to Jan. 5, and that morning the boy was complaining of a sore stomach.

Mr. Monckton said he had taken Keagan into the shower and washed the boy. He said he left Keagan in his bedroom and went to get dressed. Upon his return, he found Keagan struggling to breathe, he said. He described his frantic efforts to re-vive the boy, pulling him from the bed onto the floor and performing CPR. He said he kept up his efforts to revive the child until paramedics took over.

As he progressed through the narrative, the pace of Mr. Monckton’s speech increased. He drew deep breaths and fought tears. He succumbed to the tears and openly wept.

“I tried so hard, but I couldn’t do it,” he sobbed. “I don’t know what happened.”

Det. Dingwall hinted at injuries Keagan had suffered prior to his death. He said some of the injuries were of concern to police.

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Mr. Monckton replied that he didn’t know much, but offered an explanation for some bruising, describing a couple of incidents prior to Jan. 5. In one instance, he said, he had been carrying Keagan into the apartment at Southgate when he slipped on the steep staircase. Both he and Keagan tumbled down the stairs, he said. Keagan had sustained bruises.

He described another, more recent incident in which he said Keagan was play-ing with another little boy. The two were roughhousing and the boy had tackled Keagan, sending him crashing into a piece of furniture, Mr. Monckton said. That explained the big bruise that was at the base of Keagan’s neck, he suggested.

Mr. Monckton insisted he’d never deliberately inflicted any injuries upon Kea-gan.

“I would never harm that child or any child,” he said, the tears coming again.

“He was my son too,” Mr. Monckton sobbed. “I loved him so much.

“This is terrible,” he said at another juncture. “He was my baby boy as much as my own children.”

Throughout the interview, Det. Dingwall sat with a poker face, delivering his questions almost without inflection, listening intently as Mr. Monckton gave his answers. Just an hour into the interview, however, he laid his cards on the table.

“There’s no doubt in my mind you caused the injuries that killed Keagan,” he announced.

He placed Mr. Monckton under arrest. He had him stand and searched him. Mr. Monckton was taken into custody and held overnight at the station for a bail hearing the next morning.

On Jan. 8, before his court appearance, Mr. Monckton was brought into an interview room where he met another homicide cop, Det. Mike Horrocks. Now a prisoner, Mr. Monckton was ushered into the room wearing just a paper suit with shoulder straps, an outfit referred to colloquially as a “babydoll”. His limbs protrud-ed from the suit and he sat uncomfortably, legs crossed and arms folded tightly over his chest. He kept his gaze fixed on the floor, at first insisting he had nothing to say.

Det. Horrocks, a burly veteran with a low-key, non-confrontational approach, persisted gently in questioning Mr. Monckton. He took an almost chummy tone, offering anecdotes about his own life and issues. He suggested to Mr. Monckton scenarios in which the injuries to Keagan might have occurred. Maybe the child had acted up and Mr. Monckton had suddenly lost his temper, he offered. Maybe, he suggested, pressure was mounting because of Mr. Monckton’s recent lay-off.

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Mr. Monckton continued to deny any involvement in Keagan’s death. He de-scribed once again the events of the morning and his efforts to revive the child. Asked about his disappearance from the hospital the day Keagan died, Mr. Monck-ton once more insisted it was his grief over the boy’s death and his shame at having failed to resuscitate him that led to his flight.

The detective persisted, doggedly yet gently. At one point he urged Mr. Monckton to come clean in order to preserve some sense of honour.

“You’re looking at being branded a monster over this,” the cop suggested.

Mr. Monckton sighed. When he replied his voice was barely above a whisper.

“I already have been,” he said.

Shortly after that interview, Mr. Monckton made a court appearance at which the charges against him were read into the record. After that occurred, Durham police issued a press release, announcing the death of a two-year-old Oshawa boy and the arrest of a 26-year-old man on a charge of second-degree murder. But the police withheld both Keagan’s and Mr. Monckton’s names. It had been concluded -- erroneously -- that a publication ban put in place at the beginning of Mr. Monck-ton’s bail court appearance prohibited the release of the information. But in fact, the ban is a routine measure that prevents media from reporting on evidence presented during bail hearings. The error was soon corrected and the media was able to re-port the information.

Reporters, photographers and TV camera people soon learned of the address on Southgate. They converged there, waiting on the sidewalk along with curious neighbours, watch-ing police come and go. One picture taken that day showed de-tectives Horrocks and Dingwall trudging up the snowy drive-way as a late afternoon January sunset turned the sky crimson in front of them.

Michael Monckton was remanded in custody, pending his next court appear-ance.

Video news story Jan. 12, 2010

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Jan. 8, 2010 -- Homicide detectives Tom Dingwall and Mike Horrocks arrive at the Oshawa house where Keagan Davis was found dead.

(Metroland photo by Ron Pietroniro)

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4 EVEN THE SKY WAS CRYING

Jan. 15, 2010 -- Leigh-Ann (Cooper) Worrall makes her way to a vehicle following the funeral for her son, Keagan Davis, held at the Oshawa Funeral Home.

(Metroland photo by Ryan Pfeiffer)

A week and a half after his death, a funeral was held for Keagan Davis in Oshawa. Following is the report published Jan. 15, 2010 in Oshawa This Week.

OSHAWA -- Young Keagan Davis was laid to rest Friday, and for a time it seemed as if even the sky was crying.

Mourners arriving at a memorial service for the boy, Oshawa’s first homicide

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victim of 2010, walked through a cold drizzle into a chapel filled with an air of palpable grief, brought on by his sudden and violent passing.

The two-and-a-half-year-old child was found dead in an Oshawa home Jan. 5 by police responding to an emergency call. Michael Monckton, 26, who lived in the basement flat on Southgate Drive with the boy’s mother, has been charged with second-degree murder.

There was no hint of animosity toward the accused man during Friday’s ser-vice. Rather, speakers urged those touched by the boy’s death to take solace in his brief life and the joy he brought them. And they offered words of support for Keagan’s parents, Leigh-Ann Cooper and Daniel Davis.

“If life is soured by bitterness ... we have no peace,” Reverend Elwyn Hughes told those assembled for the service.

Mourners filled the chapel and spilled into the lobby of the funeral home, where dozens of pictures of Keagan -- laughing, splashing in a lake with his mom; dressed up for Halloween; and as a newborn, cradled in his dad’s arms -- were dis-played.

“No one should have to go through this,” Keagan’s grandfather, Steven Cooper, said as he eulogized the boy he’d nicknamed Stringer for the lanky build he in-herited from his parents. “But together we should all be able to try and cope with what’s happened these last 10 days.”

Grandmother Deborah Cooper sobbed as she remembered the child.

“You’re in a safe place now,” she said. “We had a special bond, the two of us, and I’ll never forget that.”

Keagan’s father, Daniel, spoke simply and movingly in recalling a boy who “loved everybody.

“I’m going to miss my son,” he said. “I’m going to think about him every day.

“I want to say thank you to Leigh-Ann for giving me the best son ever,” Mr. Davis said.

The service took place across the street from the courthouse in which Mr. Monckton had appeared by video two days earlier. He’s being held at the Central East Correction Centre in Lindsay where his lawyer has said he’s been the target of verbal abuse by fellow inmates and guards. His next court date is Jan. 20.

Funeral video Jan. 15, 2010

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Among those joining the mourners Friday were the Durham homicide cops who investigated the boy’s death.

Keagan died Jan. 5 and an autopsy a day later confirmed he was the victim of foul play. News of the murder came as a shock to many living in the quiet east Oshawa neighbourhood, where most residents said they weren’t familiar with the people living in the basement apartment. Residents said they’d seen an ambulance in the area, and noticed a police cruiser idling outside the home, but hadn’t im-agined anything so awful had occurred.

Friday, only sadness prevailed as Keagan’s family and loved ones said goodbye. As the service ended just before noon, the sun broke through a leaden sky and they gathered outside to watch the boy’s tiny white coffin carried to a hearse.

The dozens gathered there clutched white balloons as they watched. When the funeral cortege pulled away from the chapel and turned onto King Street, they re-leased the balloons.

One by one, the balloons were swept skyward by a breeze from the west and carried aloft, soaring until they became tiny specks, then vanished from sight.

Jan. 15, 2010 -- Funeral goers clutched white balloons as the hearse carrying little Keagan Davis drove past the Oshawa Funeral Home. (Metroland photo by Ryan Pfeiffer)

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5 THE CASE AGAINST MONCKTON

From the beginning of their investigation into the murder of Keagan Davis, Durham police gave consideration to all of the people with whom the youngster had contact in the days, weeks and months leading up to his death. That’s the na-ture of homicide investigations: cops begin by taking a long look at those closest to the victim, and expand their focus outward as the case unfolds.

That process led to the relatively quick arrest of Michael Monckton. The most glaring point against him, of course, was that he had been alone with Keagan when he died, and had also been the child’s primary caregiver in the days leading up to Keagan’s death – a time period during which some of the boy’s most grievous injur-ies had occurred, according to autopsy results.

One of the sources providing police information about Mr. Monckton was Keagan’s biological father, Dan Davis. The relationship between the two young men had been acrimonious from the beginning of Mr. Monckton’s involvement with Leigh-Ann Worrall, and at times it boiled over into bitter antagonism and threats of violence.

One forum in which their exchanges took place was social media. Mr. Davis provided police with transcripts from a Facebook exchange in October 2009 that illustrated the tone.

The two had been sniping at one another, trading insults, when Mr. Monckton wrote, “I don’t want to be Keagan’s dad. He has one. A retard, but he has one. And I won’t let him go without.”

There were also face-to-face confrontations, including one Nov. 15, 2009, when tensions between the two young men boiled over. Mr. Davis had been bick-ering over the phone with Ms. Worrall, who was late picking up Keagan after a weekend access visit. Mr. Davis was already upset. His sister, Sarah Mallette, had pointed out two small bruises she’d noticed on Keagan’s back while bathing the boy. He wanted to know what was going on. Mr. Davis reached Ms. Worrall on her cell-phone. She was on her way, she said, then put him on hold as she ran into a store. He told police Mr. Monckton picked up the phone; soon they were arguing.

Then, Mr. Davis said, Mr. Monckton said something that enraged him.

“He said to me that my son was a retard and should be dead anyway.”

And then the phone hung up.

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“I snapped,” Mr. Davis said.

He called Ms. Worrall back and warned her about bringing Mr. Monckton to the house.

“He won’t be leaving alive,” he menaced. He threatened to cut Mr. Monckton’s throat.

Keagan with his parents, Daniel Davis and Leigh-Ann (Cooper) Worrall in an undated photo. (Photo Supplied by Leigh-Ann Worrall)

At about 8 p.m. that night Ms. Worrall and Mr. Monckton arrived. The two men argued loudly while Keagan was loaded into the car. The little boy, Ms. Worrall later recalled, was frantic. As the car was driven down the street, Mr. Davis flung a rock. Soon the police were at the door and Mr. Davis was under arrest, charged with uttering a death threat. He remained in custody for three days and soon found his access to Keagan cut off. He wouldn’t see the child until Christmas. When Kea-

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gan arrived over the holidays, he wasn’t the child he’d come to know.

“He wasn’t himself. Instead of being happy and loving like he was, he was more shy,” Mr. Davis said. “He just stood at the door.”

In her interviews with Detective Dingwall, Ms. Worrall was supportive of Mr. Monckton. That was in spite of the cop’s indications she ought to reconsider the man she had planned to live her life with. Ms. Worrall rejected the suggestion Mr. Monckton had harmed her little boy. She insisted he loved Keagan and would do nothing to harm him.

At the time, however, Ms. Worrall knew little of how Keagan had died. Police hadn’t shared with her the findings of the autopsy, and the pathologist’s conclusion that Keagan had been the victim of repeated physical violence.

“I was happy to finally have a positive influence in Keagan’s life,” she would say later. “But he was two different people. I had never seen Michael angry. That is an-other reason why I didn’t think it was possible for him to have done this.”

There was more – much more – causing the cops concern about Michael Monckton. The police were sitting on another bit of information: Just months be-fore Keagan’s death, Mr. Monckton had twice been investigated for the suspected abuse of another child.

In November 2008, Mr. Monckton entered into a relationship with a woman in Port Hope. By the following spring Mr. Monckton, the woman and her young son were living together. In May 2009, during an access visit, the boy’s biological father noticed bruises and other injuries. Police questioned Mr. Monckton and the boy’s mother. Both denied hurting the boy.

In June the boy showed up at daycare with what was described as a “severe” black eye, sustained while he’d been in Mr. Monckton’s care. Once again police questioned him and once again Mr. Monckton denied causing the boy any harm.

No charges were laid, and Mr. Monckton wasn’t the only person questioned during the investigation. Still, the similarities between the Port Hope incidents and Keagan’s case were too stark to be overlooked.

And several other points made Mr. Monckton’s claims of innocence problem-atic from the police point of view:

•Therewere,fromtheinvestigators’perspective,seriousflawsinMr.Monck-ton’s description of events on the morning of Keagan’s death, beginning with the timing he provided. Mr. Monckton told police he and Keagan had slept late, until about 11 o’clock, and that the child had fallen ill soon after waking up. But Ms.

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Worrall had shown police text messages she’d received from Mr. Monckton that morning, including one that arrived at 8:12 a.m. that indicated to the police that he was up much earlier than he’d told them.

•InvestigatorswonderedwhyMr.Monckton,supposedlyfranticoverKeagan’ssudden medical distress, hadn’t called 911. He’d told them he’d performed CPR. But there was also evidence he’d taken time to text Ms. Worrall. Why text his girlfriend, the cops wondered, when the logical thing would be to call for paramedics? Could it be that Keagan was already dead when the texts were sent?

•Mr.Moncktontoldpolicethataftertheirshowerhe’dleftKeaganforatimeto get dressed, then returned to find the boy struggling to breathe. Yet he was clad only in boxer shorts when police and paramedics arrived.

•Evidencegatheredintheapartmentraisedquestions.Mr.Monckton’scell-phone was found in the master bedroom, but he insisted he’d used it to text Ms. Worrall as he administered CPR to Keagan in the boy’s bedroom. Also curious was a distinctly out-of-place tub of Blue Bonnet margarine found in the boy’s bedroom. Ms. Worrall told police Mr. Monckton had applied margarine to Keagan’s nose after an earlier injury, insisting it helped quell swelling. Had he run for the margarine that morning, hoping to cover up some new injury to the boy? As well, police found feces in the shower stall, along with some tissue, indicating perhaps that someone had begun to clean it up. But Mr. Monckton had stated that Keagan had a bowel movement in the toilet that morning. Why the discrepancy?

•Mr.Monckton’sdisappearancefromthehospitalimmediatelyafterKeaganwas declared dead was of note to police. It could be viewed as post-offence conduct, indicative of a guilty conscience. The police took a similar view of Mr. Monckton’s reported utterances, including telling his father he was considering suicide, and spontaneously telling Steven Cooper, Ms. Worrall’s dad, that he worried he’d never see his own kids again.

•Mostglaringofall,however,wastheconcurrenceofMr.Monckton’sar-rival on the scene to Keagan’s rapid decline. Keagan literally went from happy and healthy to dead of blunt force injuries in a matter of weeks. No one they inter-viewed could remember any signs of injury or abuse to the boy during the time Ms. Worrall and Mr. Davis lived together, or immediately after their break-up. It seemed Keagan’s injuries coincided with Mr. Monckton’s involvement in his life. And his death occurred while he was under Mr. Monckton’s care.

Years later, Crown attorney Paul Murray would succinctly link Mr. Monckton to Keagan’s injuries.

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“Children do not spontaneously break,” he said.

“You have a panoply of injuries – a continuum of significant, substantial force being applied to Keagan over the last few months of his life. That demonstrates as-saults on Keagan on a regular basis that culminated in his death on Jan. 5, 2010.”

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6 THE TRIAL OF MICHAEL MONCKTON

The trial of Michael Monckton began Oct. 15, 2012 at the courthouse in downtown Oshawa with two days of jury selection. The courthouse had been the scene of many of Mr. Monckton’s earlier appearances, including a lengthy prelimin-ary hearing, held in 2011, that led to his committal for trial on charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault and assault causing bodily harm.

Leading the case for the Crown was Paul Murray, a seasoned and methodical prosecutor. Over the years Mr. Murray had applied his earnest, aggressive pros-ecutorial style to numerous challenging cases, including that of Marco and Anisa Trotta, Oshawa parents convicted of the death of their infant son – a case similar in circumstance to that of Mr. Monckton’s. Representing Mr. Monckton were lawyers Ray Boggs and Bradley Pearson of the Toronto firm Boggs Levin. Both men had amassed extensive resumes for fighting serious criminal charges, and had gained reputations for thorough and aggressive work on behalf of clients.

Presiding over the trial was Superior Court Justice Alex Sosna, formerly an Oshawa-based defence lawyer who also prosecuted drug cases for the federal Crown’s office. Appointed to the bench in 2006, Justice Sosna had presided over a number of high-profile cases, including the trial of former NHLer Rob Ramage, convicted of drunk driving in the death of fellow player Keith Magnuson.

The Monckton trial unfolded in a sprawling second-floor courtroom in the Bond Street building. Mr. Monckton sat at a table with his lawyers, appearing each day wearing a suit and with his hair closely cropped. Although he was being held at the Lindsay jail, during the trial Mr. Monckton was allowed to sit at a table with his lawyers, rather than being confined to the glassed-in prisoner’s box. He arrived each day wearing leg shackles and handcuffs, and without the tie he wore when court was in session; the tie, already knotted, was slipped over his head before the jury arrived. Officers removed the handcuffs, and jurors were not aware of his bound legs.

At the other end of the large counsel table sat the prosecution, including Mr. Murray, associate Crown attorney Kerri-Ann Kennedy, and Durham police Detec-tive Mike Horrocks.

To their right was the jury box in which the 12-member panel -- seven men and five women -- sat. Seated at a raised dais at the front of the courtroom was Jus-tice Sosna, and directly in front of him were the court registrar and reporter.

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On Oct. 17, the first day scheduled for testimony, what is usually a routine matter resulted in controversy. It is customary for judges to order the exclusion of witnesses during trial so as to avoid tainting their testimony. Typical exceptions to the rule are investigating officers, who may be called to testify but who also assist the Crown during the trial. In this instance, however, Mr. Boggs asked that Det. Horrocks not be granted that exception, and his reasoning was somewhat remark-able.

Citing earlier testimony by officers who were first on the scene at the apart-ment the day Keagan died, Mr. Boggs said they’d changed their stories about their first encounter with Mr. Monckton. While officers originally stated he had been doing CPR when they arrived, they testified at the preliminary hearing he was not, Mr. Boggs said. His implication was that the cops were colluding in an attempt to incriminate Mr. Monckton.

Mr. Boggs allowed he couldn’t prove the police were sharing information, but “what I can say is that there’s an extraordinary coincidence.”

The allegation left Mr. Murray nearly apoplectic. He called Mr. Boggs’s state-ment “completely spurious and imagined allegations.” Mr. Murray defended the of-ficers, particularly Det. Horrocks, against what he said was an affront to their integ-rity. “I am offended, frankly,” he said. “I’m shocked.”

The judge seemed somewhat taken aback at Mr. Boggs’s insinuation. He re-jected the defence call to exclude Det. Horrocks and took time to put his position on the record. “It is not evidence,” Justice Sosna said of Mr. Boggs’s suggestion of collusion. “It is simply conjecture. It has no basis in fact.”

One other key ruling was made prior to the trial beginning. Justice Sosna ruled the Crown would not be allowed to call evidence of Mr. Monckton being in-vestigated for child abuse by police in Port Hope.

Evidence of prior bad behaviour is often disallowed because it is seen as preju-dicial to the defendant, but sometimes a case can be made that such “similar fact” evidence is of probative value to jurors seeking the truth. But the judge ruled the prejudicial effect of the evidence could well outweigh its probative value. Justice Sosna found the Port Hope evidence might distract the jury from the task at hand -- deciding Mr. Monckton’s guilt or innocence in Keagan’s death -- and that its introduction might unnecessarily delay what was already scheduled to be a lengthy trial.

With the preliminary skirmishes out of the way, it was time for the trial to begin in earnest.

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Keagan Davis in an undated photo. (Photo supplied by Leigh-Ann Worrall)

Mr. Murray opened the Crown’s case with an outline of anticipated testimony, telling jurors they’d hear evidence about the “litany of injuries” Keagan suffered prior to his death. He outlined the Crown theory that it was Mr. Monckton alone who had inflicted those injuries, none of which had been evident prior to his in-volvement with Keagan and Ms. Worrall. Mr. Murray summarized the events of Jan. 5, 2010, describing Ms. Worrall’s arrival at the apartment, Keagan’s death, and the gathering of physical evidence, including the conspicuous tub of margarine in the bedroom.

The sum of the evidence, Mr. Murray said, would lead the jurors to the conclu-sion that Michael Monckton had murdered young Keagan Davis.

Over the next few days, jurors heard evidence from first responders, the cops and paramedics who rushed to Southgate in response to Ms. Worrall’s 911 call, a tape of which was played for the jury. Cross-examination by the defence focused on the condition the emergency workers found Keagan in, and their efforts to save

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the child. It emerged that an oxygen tube had been improperly inserted into Kea-gan’s esophagus, rather than his windpipe.

The starkest evidence was presented during the testimony of Dr. Michael Pol-lanen, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy the day after Keagan’s death. The dreadful inventory of injuries, illustrated by graphic photos taken dur-ing the autopsy, unfolded over the course of multiple days. Each injury – each bruise, each broken bone, each instance of internal damage – was introduced and discussed, as was Dr. Pollanen’s opinion of Keagan’s cause of death: abdominal trauma accompanied by other injuries.

Evidence presented during this phase of the trial was jarring. But jurors had been forewarned at the beginning of Dr. Pollanen’s testimony. The pathologist urged them to weigh the evidence by being “clinical and objective.

“It’s not a normal experience of the everyday person to see pictures of a dead body or the body of a child, let alone the vivisection of a body,” he said.

The timing of the injuries was key to the case for both sides. Mr. Murray drew attention to evidence that injuries had occurred within days and weeks of Keagan’s death, with some, including head trauma and fresh abdominal injuries, happening within minutes to hours of death. Mr. Boggs focused on other injuries, including broken wrist bones and ribs that had healed and could have been incurred months earlier. Mr. Boggs also suggested that improperly conducted CPR might have caused some of Keagan’s abdominal injuries on the day of his death.

The rationale for the cross-examination was clear: If some of Keagan’s injur-ies were determined to have been inflicted as early as six months before death, Mr. Monckton, on the scene for just a couple of months, had to be excluded as a sus-pect.

While occasionally agreeing with Mr. Boggs some injuries might be months old, Dr. Pollanen cautioned such reasoning amounted to speculation. The number and nature of the injuries -- some fresh, some older, some healed -- made it difficult to ascertain precisely when they may have been inflicted, he said.

“This is a recurring theme in this case,” Dr. Pollanen said. “It is very difficult to give straightforward times.”

Throughout the trial, Keagan’s family -- his mother and father, grandparents and aunts -- were absent from the courtroom, barred because of the order exclud-ing witnesses. But each had their turn on the stand. Ms. Worrall, tearful but precise in her responses, recalled the last few days of her son’s life. Mr. Davis recounted his run-ins with Mr. Monckton and his growing anger at finding bruises on Keagan.

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Testimony from other relatives represented a recurring theme: Keagan Davis was a well-cared for, much-loved and healthy little boy who showed no sign of injury prior to his involvement with Michael Monckton.

Jurors also saw a video of Mr. Monckton’s interrogation on the day of his arrest, watching and listening as he tearfully described his efforts to save Keagan, and his professions of love for the little boy. They heard him explain his flight from the hospital when Keagan died and his account of the events leading up to the child’s death. And they saw Det. Dingwall arrest him for murder.

On Nov. 13, Mr. Murray called his final witness, a pediatrician who opined Keagan’s injuries were the result of abuse.

As the close of the Crown’s case approached, observers began to ponder an inevitable and fascinating question: Would Mr. Monckton take the stand in his own defence? Would he respond to the egregious charges he faced?

The answer was provided by Mr. Boggs. He announced he would call no evi-dence in reply to the Crown’s case. Mr. Monckton, save and except for the two words uttered at the start of the trial – “Not guilty” – would remain mute. The trial would be decided on the strength of the Crown’s case alone.

Monckton video interrogation

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7 THE CASE REACHES A CRESCENDO

On Nov. 15, a Thursday, prosecutor Paul Murray stepped up to a podium placed a few feet from the jury box, opened a thick binder, took a sip of water, and began to speak. It was the beginning of what was to be a powerful, day-long ad-dress, his summation of the case against Michael Monckton.

Mr. Murray’s task was to summarize the evidence and to stress to jurors how they ought to interpret it as they deliberated. The prosecutor’s address was punctu-ated by a series of photos of Keagan that were projected on a large screen behind him. The photos began with images of Keagan as a carefree, happy child with spark-ling dark eyes and an impish, almost subtle grin.

As the chronology represented by the photos progressed, however, the little boy de-picted changed. There were fewer photos of Keagan smiling. Rather, the child stared from the screen, his soulful eyes prominent. Marks were evident – a scrape on Kea-gan’s forehead in one picture, an angry red mark across the bridge of his nose in another. The pictures continued to reflect the progression of the narrative. A recital of Keagan’s many injuries was accompanied by pictures from the autopsy.

Mr. Murray reminded the jury that the photo montage and the change in Keagan it depicted coincided with Mr. Monckton’s involvement in the child’s life.

“Over a short period of time, from the end of August when he meets Leigh-Ann Cooper to Jan. 5, 2010 … Keagan went from healthy to dead,” Mr. Murray said.

“Make no mistake: I will be asking you to find Mr. Monckton guilty.”

Mr. Murray insisted the Crown had proven that the injuries Keagan suffered were deliberate, and that the person who had inflicted them knew they were likely to cause the little boy’s death, or was reckless as to whether or not death occurred.

“People intend the consequences of their actions,” Mr. Murray said.

“There is overwhelming evidence that Keagan was a battered child,” he said, “and Mr. Monckton was his abuser.”

The prosecutor also made pre-emptive pleas to the jury to be wary of arguments he anticipated would be advanced by Mr. Boggs. In declining to call evidence, Mr. Boggs had secured for the defence a slight tactical advantage in that he would ad-dress the jury last. Mr. Murray expected Mr. Boggs would urge the jury to turn a critical eye toward others in Keagan’s life as potential suspects.

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He warned jurors not to be distracted by suggestions that other people, in particu-lar Keagan’s biological parents, might have been the child’s tormentors. Dan Davis, Mr. Murray told the jury, was “excluded” as a suspect. And Keagan’s mother, Leigh-Ann Worrall, also had to be exonerated, he said.

Keagan and his mom, Leigh-Ann Worrall. (Photo Supplied by Leigh-Ann Worrall)

Ms. Worrall had long been the subject of speculation, inside the courtroom and beyond. The implication left hanging was that she either knew of the abuse her son had suffered, or that she was responsible for it. Mr. Murray flatly rejected such speculation. He depicted Ms. Worrall as a young woman working hard at her job and infatuated with her new boyfriend. There could be an argument Ms. Wor-rall fell short as a parent, he said, but there was no evidence she was guilty of child abuse.

“In my submission to you, she was blinded by love,” the prosecutor told jurors.

“She is guilty of not protecting her child. But she did not do this,” Mr. Murray said.

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“She did not harm Keagan.

“The entirety of the evidence demonstrates only one person hurt Keagan,” Mr. Murray said. “And that person, on that morning, was Michael Monckton.”

On the Friday morning after Mr. Murray’s summation, there was a palpable air of anticipation among the observers who crowded into courtroom 205, interested to see if Mr. Boggs would rise to the challenge presented him by the Crown’s mas-terful performance. As it turned out, he did.

Mr. Boggs is, in many ways, the opposite of Mr. Murray. While the prosecutor is rail-thin and moves briskly, Mr. Boggs is portly and appears even more so in his flowing robes; he fairly shambles as he moves about the courtroom. Mr. Murray’s questions are rapid, clipped, to the point. Mr. Boggs tends to ease into a question, sometimes with preamble, and then seize on the point he’s looking for the witness to tender.

The courtroom was silent as Mr. Boggs stepped up the podium. He glanced down at his notes, then, gazing at the jury over the rims of his reading glasses, im-plored them to put aside the outrage they no doubt felt at the abuse done to Keagan Davis, and take a cold, hard look at the facts as they were.

“Here what we are concerned with is evidence and truth. Not anger and out-rage,” Mr. Boggs calmly intoned.

Then he addressed a question he supposed was on everyone’s mind: why had the defence called no evidence?

Simple, Mr. Boggs told the jury. He didn’t need to. The Crown’s case against Michael Monckton, he explained, added up to a whole bunch of nothing.

“There is no proof at all – whatsoever – that Michael Monckton ever hurt Kea-gan,” the lawyer said. “Zero.”

Mr. Boggs allowed that evidence tendered during the trial was heart-rending. But he insisted that while the Crown had presented a convincing case that Keagan had died by someone else’s hand, there was not a single shred of evidence it was Mr. Monckton’s doing.

“If you look at the whole of the evidence you’ve still got nothing that points to Michael Monckton,” he said. “Zero plus zero plus zero plus zero still equals zero.”

Mr. Boggs focused on two key facets of Mr. Monckton’s defence: That other people in Keagan’s life could not be absolutely excluded as suspects, and that it

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could be argued some of the injuries Keagan sustained had occurred well before Mr. Monckton and Ms. Worrall began their relationship.

The jury was reminded again of the evidence of Dr. Pollanen, and the coroner’s concurring with his suggestion that evidence of bones that had broken and healed might be indicative of injuries sustained many months before Keagan died. The medical evidence indicated the broken arm may have been healing for six months, Mr. Boggs reminded the jury.

“If you’re looking at six months, Michael’s not in the picture,” he said.

But the lawyer reserved his most persuasive arguments for the other prong of his defence: That someone other than Mr. Monckton had to be responsible. Mr. Boggs trained his sights on Ms. Worrall. He asked jurors to recall her testimony, and remember that not once did she directly implicate Mr. Monckton.

“It’s consistent with the fact that she knows he’s innocent,” Mr. Boggs said. “How can she know? There’s only one way to know.”

What mother, he asked the jury, would not notice the injuries sustained by Keagan prior to his death, such as his broken arm? He suggested the most likely scenario was that Ms. Worrall caused the injuries and covered them up.

“We know that sometimes mothers hurt their babies. It happens,” Mr. Boggs told the jurors. “Suggesting that they don’t is a stereotype.”

Mr. Boggs expanded his scope, asking jurors to consider Dan Davis, Keagan’s hot-headed father. Perhaps, he suggested, the many injuries Keagan sustained had been dealt him over weeks and months by family members who covered it up. It could be, he said, that Keagan’s death wasn’t deliberate, but rather a result of mis-treatment over time.

“Whoever did this – whether it was Dan, whether it was Leigh-Ann – they never intended to kill him,” Mr. Boggs suggested.

He concluded by urging jurors to approach their task dispassionately, giving Mr. Monckton the benefit of doubt he insisted permeated the entire case against him.

“For three years he’s had a murder rap over his head,” Mr. Boggs said of his client. “He’s been in jeopardy over that.

“You don’t have Keagan’s life in your hands,” Mr. Boggs reminded jurors.

“But you’ve got Mike’s.”

It was Friday afternoon. Justice Sosna released the jury for the weekend, telling

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them to return Monday prepared to hear his final instructions, then be sequestered for their deliberations. The judge urged the jurors to wait until they’d heard the charge before arriving at conclusions in the case.

“Keep an open mind,” he told them.

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8 THE VERDICT

Monday, Nov. 19 marked the beginning of the final stage of Michael Monck-ton’s trial. Once again courtroom 205 was packed with spectators as Justice Sosna delivered his charge to the jury, the final words the panel heard before they retired for deliberations. During the day-long address, the judge outlined for the jury the process they were to follow in arriving at their verdict. The exercise included ex-plaining the applicable law, as well as a review of evidence heard during the trial.

Justice Sosna encouraged jurors to take their time as they considered the evi-dence. And he urged them to “simply exercise good common sense” in assessing the credibility of the 21 witnesses the Crown had called. As to the central question – the guilt or innocence of Mr. Monckton – jurors were instructed to impose a high standard. Simply deciding the defendant was “probably or likely” guilty was not enough, Justice Sosna cautioned. He told jurors that to return with a guilty verdict they had to unanimously concur that the Crown had proven its case beyond a rea-sonable doubt.

The address revisited the charges on the indictment – second-degree murder, aggravated assault, assault causing bodily harm – and explained the law applicable to each offence. A challenge faced by the jurors, and acknowledged by the judge, was the circumstantial nature of the case. There were no eyewitnesses to the as-saults that killed Keagan, and no sure-fire forensic evidence indicting the man ac-cused of the crime.

“The central issue in this case … is premised to a large degree on circumstan-tial evidence. There is no direct evidence linking Michael Monckton to the allega-tions,” the judge said.

“An accused must not be convicted on a guess, no matter how shrewd that guess may be.”

The judge also urged jurors to pay particular attention to the videos of the police interrogations of Mr. Monckton. The statements in the videos represented his only reply to the allegations against him. Justice Sosna told the jury to carefully assess Mr. Monckton’s utterances. His denials, if credible, could prove an effective line of defence.

“If you believe the statements, you must acquit,” Justice Sosna said. “There’s no question about it.”

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The charge was completed late Monday afternoon. Jurors were led out of the courtroom to begin deliberations, with the understanding they would remain se-questered until they had completed their task.

Virtually no one believed a verdict was a possibility Monday night. But there still began a vigil that would persist until the process was over. In the corridor outside courtoom 205 there were soon established two camps, separated by just metres: The families of Keagan and Mr. Monckton. It was an uneasy arrangement. There had been much animosity involved in the case from the very beginning. Mr. Monckton’s family was fierce and vociferous in their belief of his innocence. There was a strong feeling he was taking the fall for a horrendous crime he did not com-mit.

Despite the tensions there remained an air of civility, however, with both sides tolerating one another, albeit not necessarily happily. Folks whiled away the time chatting, drinking coffee and eating fast food, and staring at electronic devices. Some took to social media to update those not at the courthouse; as the hours crawled by, Mr. Monckton’s supporters speculated online that the longer the de-liberations took, the more likely it was he would be acquitted or found guilty of a lesser offence, such as manslaughter.

Others participated online in discussion of the closely-watched case. Readers posted prolifically on the durhamregion.com website, offering their opinions on the possible culpability of Mr. Monckton and others involved in Keagan’s life, such as Ms. Worrall.

Stirring that debate was a durhamregion.com article, published after the jury was sequestered, that for the first time revealed the fact Mr. Monckton had previ-ously been investigated for allegations of child abuse – details that had been subject to a publication ban because of the ruling jurors couldn’t hear it. Once the jury was shielded from all media, however, the story could be told. It elicited a profound re-action. Some readers said it should have been presented in open court.

“This,” wrote one contributor who admitted to having been previously ambiva-lent, “changes everything.”

Another day crept by, Tuesday, with no hint of what progress the jury might be making. There were no questions from the jury, no requests for additional aids. Nothing. All there was to do was speculate on how the deliberations might be go-ing, and when the jury might come back. But that’s all it was – speculation. No one could really imagine what sort of drama was playing out in the jury room, where they were at with their discussions, or even whether they were hopelessly dead-locked. The tension among observers continued on a low simmer as evening began

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to fall and the city outside the courtroom windows fell into silhouette. At eight o’clock that night word went around that the jurors were being bused back to their hotel. There would be no verdict today.

Shortly after jurors arrived at the courthouse on the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 21, they gave observers the first indication of how their deliberations were progressing. That hint came in the form of two questions sent in writing to the judge.

Justice Sosna gathered the lawyers and presented them with the questions:

•Thefirstwasinregardtothechargeofaggravatedassault.Jurorswantedtoknow if the charge applied solely to the abdominal injuries sustained by Keagan, or if it applied to the sum of all his injuries.

•Thesecond--muchmoreominouslyforMr.Monckton--relatedtothemurder charge. The jury wanted to hear again the instruction on the state of mind necessary for a finding of guilt.

After consultation with the lawyers, Justice Sosna called the jurors in and re-sponded to the queries. First, he told them that deliberations on the aggravated as-sault charge were to focus on the abdominal injuries, including those that, accord-ing to the pathologist, were healing or healed by the time Keagan died. The second response was more complex, and crucial to the deliberations. Justice Sosna told the jury they could arrive at a finding of guilt through two avenues:

•ByfindingthatMr.MoncktonhadintendedtocauseKeagan’sdeath,or,

•ByfindingthatMr.Moncktonknewtheharmhewasinflictingwaslikelytocause death, and was reckless as to whether or not death occurred.

The Crown had to prove either scenario, but not both, the judge said. He cau-tioned them once again on making careful assessments of circumstantial evidence, and sent them back to their deliberations.

Now observers had something to talk about, and the talk centred on how grim things looked for Mr. Monckton. The question relating to the murder charge indi-cated jurors were not inclined to acquit. The accused man had been led out of the courtroom minutes earlier, muttering nervously. It seemed now just a matter of time.

Shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday, word arrived: There was a verdict. All of the

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frustration and boredom of the previous few days dissipated instantly. Suddenly the corridor outside the courtroom was bustling as people reached for their phones, urging folks to get quickly to the courthouse. Within a few minutes the doors of the courtroom opened, and people began to file inside.

There is nothing quite like the moments just prior to the delivery of a verdict in a closely-watched case. There is a palpable undercurrent of tension and anticipa-tion, a realization that something extraordinary – something that will have a pro-found and lasting effect on those involved – is pending. Steadily the audience in the courtroom grew. First to arrive were the families of Keagan and Mr. Monckton, and the lawyers. Then others filtered in – lawyers from the Crown’s office and defence lawyers who’d caught wind of something big about to occur, various cops, including a strong contingent from Durham’s homicide department, and other courthouse workers.

Silence reigned as Justice Sosna arrived and confirmed a verdict had been reached. The audience rose as one when the jurors were ushered in, everyone searching for some kind of sign – a tell, if you will – on at least one of those faces, an early indication of what was to come. The jury foreperson stood when asked by the court registrar and declared a verdict had been arrived at. A piece of paper – the verdict sheet – was handed to the judge, who read it in silence, refolded it, and handed it back.

The foreperson delivered the verdicts.

On the charge of second-degree murder, guilty.

On the charge of aggravated assault, not guilty.

On the charge of assault causing bodily harm, guilty.

A stunned silence prevailed. Then came the sound of sobs, emitting from among those clustered around Mr. Monckton’s family. Mr. Monckton, who had been standing stock-still, facing his jury of peers, bowed his head slightly. His broad shoulders slumped. Mr. Monckton’s mother rushed suddenly up an aisle, tears streaming down her face, and banged her way through the doors to the corridor outside. Dan Davis stood silently, gazing into the space in front of him. His girl-friend caressed his back. Ms. Worrall too seemed to sag, her back bowing, as she leaned against her father.

After a few more formalities, the jurors were excused. Decorum was sustained for a moment longer, until the judge left the courtroom. Then it was gone.

“How does it feel, Cooper family?” someone from the Monckton benches

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shouted. Others joined in, proclaiming Mr. Monckton’s innocence. More words were exchanged as staff and police intervened.

Mr. Monckton was being led out of the courtroom, his hands cuffed, when he looked into the gallery and found Ms. Worrall.

“I’m sorry I can’t give Keagan back,” he said loudly.

“I didn’t take him away from you. You know that.”

He paused once more just before being led out and gestured to a reporter. “Come and see me at the jail, please,” he called out.

Then the heavy door clicked shut, and Michael Monckton was gone.

November 19, 2012 -- Steven Cooper consoles his daughter Leigh-Ann outside of the Oshawa courthouse after a jury fiinds Michael Monckton guilty of second degree murder in the death of

Leigh-Ann’s son, Keagan Davis. (Metroland photo by Ron Pietroniro)

The anguish that had erupted inside the courtroom continued outside. Out-raged supporters of Mr. Monckton gathered in a cluster around one young man

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who shouted and swore, facing the courthouse doors. Visibly trembling with rage, he strained against the grasp of another man who held him, attempting to guide him to a parking lot across the street. Police, too, began to gather, several cruis-ers converging as the young man continued to rage. A cop approached and advised the family to get him away from the courthouse. Eventually he succumbed to the gentle force being applied and drifted away, but he never once looked away from the courthouse façade; he receded, struggling as he walked backward, the arms of others encircling him, howling his outrage.

Ms. Worrall, looking drained, wept openly as she rested her head on her fath-er’s shoulder. Mr. Davis, supported by his girlfriend and a few buddies, lingered in the courtyard, speaking in low tones. It seemed as if no one really knew what to do next. Keagan’s relatives emerged in twos, threes, and fours. There was no celebra-tory air to the procession. They were grim-faced and quiet.

Yes, there may have been a conviction, they agreed. But it wasn’t going to bring back little Keagan, was it?

Mr. Murray, the prosecutor, was restrained in his comments.

“There were no winners here,” he said. “We have a dead child. We have three families that have been torn apart.”

The prosecutor spoke to the insinuations that had been directed at Ms. Wor-rall, reiterating his stance that she was excluded as a participant in the harm done to Keagan. He said that with a few exceptions, others close to Keagan had also failed to detect serious injuries prior to the child’s death.

“A lot of people saw Keagan during that time,” he said.

Mr. Murray said that the case against Mr. Monckton could be declared cir-cumstantial, “but Keagan’s injuries were never circumstantial. There’s nothing cir-cumstantial about a child being beaten to death.

“This case for us has always been about Keagan,” Mr. Murray said.

“That poor boy did not deserve that.”

The next day Ms. Worrall gave an interview, her first direct comments to the media in more than two years following Mr. Monckton’s arrest. She acknowledged the incredulous response of some observers, who wondered how the grievous in-juries Keagan suffered could have gone unnoticed by her and others who cared for the boy.

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“I think it’s a natural reaction,” Ms. Worrall said. “Had I been in their place, reading it from their point of view, I probably would have said the same thing: How could this mother not know?

“Unfortunately we didn’t know,” Ms. Worrall said. “Keagan never once com-plained about being in pain.

“That’s why at the beginning I was in complete denial about Michael doing this.”

Ms. Worrall said she’s still puzzled about the man she had come to believe she would share her life with. But evidence at the trial, including the ghastly details from the autopsy -- which revealed injuries the little boy suffered within minutes to hours of his death -- brought home the terrible circumstances of Keagan’s death.

“He manipulated us,” she said. “I thought he loved us.”

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9 “AN EGREGIOUS BREACH OF TRUST” A crowd began to assemble outside the second-floor courtroom at the Oshawa courthouse early on the morning of Friday, Feb. 22. The day’s proceedings were to mark the next chapter in Michael Monckton’s court odyssey: Justice Alex Sosna was to pass sentence, announcing the number of years he must serve before becoming eligible to apply for parole.

Mr. Monckton’s conviction on the charge of second-degree murder brought with it an automatic life sentence. Earlier the judge had heard arguments from the Crown and defence on parole eligibility. Mr. Monckton’s defence team, citing his relative youth and prospects for rehabilitation, called for 10 years, the minimum al-lowed under the Criminal Code. The Crown sought 15 years of parole ineligibility, calling on Justice Sosna to impose a sentence that both condemned Mr. Monckton’s actions and protected the community.

The largest courtroom on the floor had been chosen for the hearing, and by 9:30 a.m. it was packed. Sitting directly behind the glassed-in prisoner’s dock were Mr. Monckton’s supporters, including his father and sister. Directly behind them, separated by a few rows, were Dan Davis and his supporters. Arriving at the last moment were Leigh-Ann Worrall, along with her father and others, who chose a block of seats to the right of the courtroom, near the door through which a shackled and handcuffed Mr. Monckton was escorted by officers.

Even before the judge arrived there was an outburst when Mr. Monckton’s sis-ter went on a profane diatribe, swiveling in her seat to glare at a woman behind her. She loudly challenged the woman to a fight.

“Hey!” hollered a cop, leaping to his feet.

Officers converged in the area and the woman was led out of the courtroom. As she went she screamed more obscenities and challenges at Ms. Worrall.

“He’s doing your bit!” she shrieked, implying once again that Mr. Monckton was taking the fall for a crime he hadn’t committed. “You f---ing beat that baby!”

The outburst was not unexpected. Such occurrences had become almost rou-tine during the court sessions that followed the trial. The forced decorum that had kept matters in check while a verdict still hung in the balance was no more. Ten-sions bubbled to the surface, often expressed with shocking profanity.

When Justice Sosna entered the court the observers rose en masse. Mr. Monckton paused a second, watching the judge, then slowly, seemingly grudgingly,

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stood. The court registrar officially opened court. The observers sat, eyes fixed on the judge.

There is a set template for sentencings which sees the judge review the findings of the trial, the circumstances of the offence, and the positions of the Crown and defence. The judge also dwells on the offender himself, focusing on overall charac-ter as well as conduct after the trial.

Mr. Monckton had undergone a pre-sentence analysis, during which a cor-rections official interviewed him, learning as much as possible about his life prior to Keagan’s killing and since. A prominent aspect of the report was Mr. Monckton’s continuing insistence that he was not responsible for the child’s death.

“I really wish he wasn’t dead,” Mr. Monckton told the interviewer. “But it wasn’t me who took him.”

Also of note were the recommendations for parole ineligibility made by the jurors who had convicted Mr. Monckton. Polled after the verdict, four jurors rec-ommended Mr. Monckton’s parole eligibility be set at 15 years, while six -- half of the 12-person panel -- said he ought to serve the maximum term of 25 years before parole. Two jurors made no recommendation.

Justice Sosna rejected the defence’s exhortation for leniency, saying the gravity of Mr. Monckton’s offence and his duty to denounce it outweighed the young man’s prospects for rehabilitation.

“The senseless and brutal murder of a defenceless child ... is an egregious breach of trust,” he said. “This offence requires significant sanction.”

Then he pronounced a sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 15 years. On the conviction for assault causing bodily harm Mr. Monckton was sen-tenced to five years, served concurrently.

Mr. Monckton chose not to address the court, replying with a curt “No” when asked if he wished to do so. Instead, as he had on previous occasions, he spoke out in the absence of the judge, and off the record. As he had before he fixed his gaze on Ms. Worrall, vowing to pursue the matter “every year.

“You know what you did,” he told her, just before disappearing behind the door that led to the cells.

“You’re a murderer,” someone replied.

“Have a good time, Mike,” said another.

Later a shaken Ms. Worrall expressed her ongoing consternation with Mr.

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Monckton’s continued denials and accusations.

“For him to deny involvement is so frustrating,” she said.

For Mr. Davis, the sentencing marked the end – for now – of the court process and the beginning of life beyond the ordeal. Now the father of a six-month-old boy, named Daniel, he lamented his inability to protect Keagan from his fate. He sighed sadly as he described life in the wake of such tragedy.

“Day to day, sometimes it’s hell,” he said.

“But you’ve just got to keep going.”

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Acknowledgements Reporters who spend any time at all covering crime and court beats are cer-tain to encounter their share of tragic stories. They come with the territory. Some of those stories, however, stand out from the rest. The story of young Keagan Davis’s untimely death is one of those unique stories.

I have covered this story for Oshawa This Week from the beginning, back in January 2010, when it became known a young child had died, and an adult who had cared for him was charged with murder. At first, we didn’t even know the names of those involved. But soon Keagan’s name came out and, inevitably, someone in the newsroom tracked down a picture of the child. There he was, just a tot with a slight frame and deep, soulful eyes … and the extent of the tragedy, all of a sudden, be-came that much more real.

Likewise, the trial of Michael Monckton was remarkable. The sheer emotional impact of the experience was profound and unforgettable. Even in the midst of legal arguments and the occasional tedium of the court process, my mind would invariably return to the real issue at hand: A helpless child had died at the hands of someone else, and this process was designed to determine who was responsible.

This is a story of such scope and impact that it is a natural candidate for this, the newest of our media platforms, the e-book. There are so many distinct chap-ters – Keagan’s death, his heartbreaking funeral, and the tense trial that has recently been completed – that make it ideal for this type of reportage. There is so much that is tragic and so many people who have been profoundly affected. The story merits this treatment. Attention must be paid.

I am grateful to my managers and colleagues who provided encouragement to begin this project, and the time and latitude to complete it. Editor-in-chief Joanne Burghardt has been an enthusiastic supporter who spent a great deal of time on the layout of the manuscript, investing the effort required to present it well. Copy editor Judi Bobbitt not only combed these many thousands of words for typos, but also provided valuable input on the flow and tone of the text. Managing editor Mike Johnston juggled the limited resources of a busy newsroom to allow me time to focus on it.

I am grateful as well to Leigh-Ann Worrall, Keagan’s mother. She provided the majority of the photos that appear in this e-book, and has been candid and helpful in our discussions of the case. It is impossible for me to imagine the crushing grief she has dealt with; it has been exacerbated, I am sure, by the scrutiny of the media, and the zeal with which some observers have applied themselves to compounding

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that grief by blaming her, directly or by implication, for what happened to Keagan.

Other members of Keagan’s extended family have been similarly graceful. It cannot have been easy to have this drama played out in the news media. But they realized and acknowledged our job and the necessity that we do it as thoroughly as possible, and never once directed animosity our way, even when there were words being printed and comments being made that must have been hurtful.

It is my profound hope that the folks who loved Keagan, including Leigh-Ann, Keagan’s dad Dan Davis, the boy’s grandparents and other relatives, will continue healing from the shock and pain caused by Keagan’s death, and will be able to focus on the fond memories they have of a little boy taken from them too soon.

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About the author

Jeff Mitchell is the crime and courts reporter with Metroland Media Group Ltd.’s Durham Region Division. A reporter for the past 29 years, he is also the author of ‘Young, Innocent and In Prison: The Robert Baltovich Story’.

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Copyright Notice

© Metroland Media Group Ltd.

Durham Region division.

All rights reserved

865 Farewell St.,

Oshawa, ON

L1H 6N8

Publisher: Tim Whittaker

Editor-in-Chief: Joanne Burghardt

Managing Editor: Mike Johnston

Author: Jeff Mitchell

Cover: Nick Evelyn

The Sky Was Crying

ISBN:

ePub 978-1-927696-00-2

Mobi 978-1-927696-01-9

PDF 978-0-9918285-9-3

Look for future e-reports at durhamregion.com