R. v. Chalmers, 2025 ONSC 1551

ONTARIO

SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

CITATION: R. v. Chalmers, 2025 ONSC 1551

COURT FILE NO.: CR-24-4-242-0000

DATE: 20250310

B E T W E E N:

HIS MAJESTY THE KING

• and -

SHAQUILLE CHALMERS

Anna Stanford and Stephanie Abrahams,

for the Crown

Daniel Kirby and Mary Murphy,

for the accused

HEARD: March 7, 2025

K.L. Campbell J.:

RULING

[Substantive Admissibility of 911 Call]

A. Introduction

1The accused, Shaquille Chalmers, is charged with the first-degree murder of Marvin Matthew. The offence is alleged to have taken place in Toronto on May 26, 2023.

2Essentially, the Crown contends that the accused was involved in a romantic relationship with a woman named Cheyenne Fitzsimmons. They have a young son together. They also lived together for a time in a second-floor apartment unit in a multi-story building located at 65 Dynevor Road in Toronto, located near the intersection of Dufferin Street and Eglinton Avenue West.

3At some point, in the spring of 2023, during the decline of her relationship with the accused, Ms. Fitzsimmons began to see the deceased, Marvin Mathew. The accused ultimately became aware of this romantic and sexual relationship between Ms. Fitzsimmons and Mr. Matthew and, needless to say, he did not approve.

4On the evening of May 26, 2023, Ms. Fitzsimmons and Mr. Mathew attended at the second-floor apartment at 65 Dynevor Road, where she lived. Ms. Fitzsimmons thought that the accused was at work, and would not be back at the apartment for some time. Ms. Fitzsimmons and Mr. Mathew had a smoke on the second-floor balcony of the apartment. Then they took a shower together. Then they went into the bedroom of the apartment and began to have sexual intercourse together on the bed.

5According to Ms. Fitzsimmons, these consensual sexual activities were interrupted when the accused opened the door of the bedroom and turned on the interior light in the bedroom. Mr. Chalmers immediately went to the bottom of the bed. Ms. Fitzsimmons jumped out of the bed, naked, on the side of the bed closest to the bedroom door. Mr. Mathew jumped out of the bed, naked, on the side of the bed closest to the window and furthest away from the bedroom door. Ms. Fitzsimmons testified that she saw the accused raise his right hand in the air, and then strike Mr. Mathew with a knife. Ms. Fitzsimmons then quickly ran from the room, and the apartment, still naked, in search of help. Her phone and wallet were left on the kitchen table. Ms. Fitzsimmons did not see what happened thereafter between Mr. Mathew and the accused.

6Ms. Fitzsimmons ran downstairs to the lobby, went outside the interior door of the apartment building, into the vestibule area briefly, accidentally locking herself out of the building, while still completely naked. She had to be “buzzed” back into the building by the superintendent.

7Ms. Fitzsimmons then ran back upstairs to the second floor of the building, and started banging on other apartment doors trying to get help. Other tenants of the apartment building refused to let her inside their apartments. Eventually, a man came off the elevator on the second floor, with his young children, and he kindly agreed to let Ms. Fitzsimmons into his nearby apartment, where he gave her his phone so that she could call the 911 emergency number. He also gave her some clothes to wear.

8At issue between the parties on this application is the substantive admissibility of the audio-recording of the call that Ms. Fitzsimmons made to the 911 operator at that time. The Crown contends that the recording is substantively admissible, while defence counsel argued that the recording was entirely inadmissible for any purpose.

9I ruled that the audio-recording of the 911 call was substantively admissible. Further, I advised the parties that I would eventually provide them with reasons explaining my conclusion in this regard. These are those reasons.

B. Analysis

10On the brief voir dire that was conducted to determine this issue, the Crown played the audio recording of the 911 call by Ms. Fitzsimmons. I was also provided with a helpful transcript of the call, in order to assist me in understanding the contents of the call.

11It is immediately apparent that, throughout the call, Ms. Fitzsimmons is in a very emotional state – crying, sobbing and moaning. It is obvious that, during the entirety of the call, she is still operating under the shocking circumstances of what she had just witnessed in the bedroom of her apartment.

12During this relatively short, but very intense, phone call, Ms. Fitzsimmons told the 911 operator all of the following facts – some in response to questions asked by the 911 operator: (1) that she wanted the police to come to her apartment unit at 65 Dynevor Road; (2) she had been “home” with her 38 or 39-year old boyfriend, Mr. Matthew, and that her 30-year-old ex-boyfriend, the accused, Mr. Chalmers, who still had a key for her unit, came in, “jumped over the bed” and “started stabbing” her boyfriend with a “knife;” (3) she was unsure whether her boyfriend was “alive or dead” at that point as she just “ran out of the apartment;” (4) she had been in the hallway literally “fucking naked” for “so long” thereafter, and had been “locked” out, and had been “banging on doors,” but no one was helping her; and (5) these events happened about “15” or “20” minutes” earlier, and that she had been outside her apartment trying to get help since then.

13The 911 operator told Ms. Fitzsimmons that the police and ambulance were “already on the way” and to “stay on the line.” Ms. Fitzsimmons indicated that she could hear them. Near the end of the call, Ms. Fitzsimmons began to repeatedly apologize to the 911 operator and thank her for her assistance, but the 911 operator told her she did not need to apologize as this was a “traumatic” event.

14In my view, the contents of the 911 call by Ms. Fitzsimmons, are clearly substantively admissible for the truth of its contents. The 911 call by Ms. Fitzsimmons was a “spontaneous declaration,” falling well within the defined legal scope of that traditional exception to the rule against hearsay. The 911 call was, in effect, a statement made spontaneously by Ms. Fitzsimmons. The statement was made very shortly after the traumatic events described, while Ms. Fitzsimmons was still under the extreme emotional circumstances of seeing the startling presence of the accused in her bedroom, where she had been naked with her boyfriend on her bed, and then seeing the accused immediately start violently stabbing her boyfriend with a knife. These truly shocking and traumatic events understandably caused Ms. Fitzsimmons to quickly flee from her apartment, completely naked, in search of help. The predictable emotional upset of Ms. Fitzsimmons is readily apparent throughout the 911 call, and the call took place at a time, and in circumstances, in which Ms. Fitzsimmons simply could not possibly have fabricated or concocted the details in this statement. In short, in my view, this 911 statement by Ms. Fitzsimmons possesses all of the necessary hallmarks of reliability and trustworthiness that justify its substantive admissibility. See: R. v. Khan (1988), 1988 CanLII 7106 (ON CA), 42 C.C.C. (3d) 197, 64 C.R. (3d) 281 (Ont.C.A.), at pp. 207-212; affirmed: 1990 CanLII 77 (SCC), [1990] 2 S.C.R. 531, 59 CCC (3d) 92, at pp. 539-548; R v Sylvain, 2014 ABCA 153, 310 C.C.C. (3d) 1, at paras. 20-39; R. v. Nguyen, 2015 ONCA 278, 125 O.R. (3d) 321, at paras. 138-153; leave to appeal denied: [2015] S.C.C.A. No. 365; R. v. Camara, 2021 ONCA 79, 400 C.C.C. (3d) 490, at paras. 78-92; R. v. MacKinnon, 2022 ONCA 811, 164 O.R. (3d) 535, at paras. 27-51.

15I reject the argument of defence counsel to the contrary. Ms. Fitzsimmons clearly expressed her quite predictable concern over the fact that she had not earlier been helped by any of her fellow tenants in the apartment building, as she tried to obtain such help in her naked and afraid condition. However, this simply cannot result, in my view, in the exclusion of this evidence, as it does not, in any way, undermine the overall reliability of the circumstances surrounding the making of the 911 call, nor does it suggest that Ms. Fitzsimmons had time to fabricate or concoct the contents of her 911 call. Indeed, quite to the contrary. This shows that, in her emotionally charged condition, Ms. Fitzsimmons was desperately seeking help from others, not pensively reflecting on how she could quickly manufacture some narrative to falsely implicate the accused in an attack on her boyfriend.

C. Conclusion

16For these brief reasons, and as I have already advised the parties, I have concluded that the contents of the 911 call made by Ms. Fitzsimmons is substantively admissible, for the truth of its contents.

Kenneth L. Campbell J.