Boy pleads guilty in cousin's killing

Accused is youngest ever to be convicted of murder in city

- JACQUES GALLANT

A Toronto boy stood in the prisoner’s box on Thursday and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for fatally stabbing his cousin last year, when both were just 12 years old.

The plea makes him the youngest person to be found guilty of murder in the city’s history.

Why he did it may never be known.

“This is a young person, an extremely young person,” the boy’s lawyer, Alonzo Abbey, told Ontario Court Justice Enzo Rondinelli while standing next to his client, who was barely old enough to be criminally charged.

“He’s never had a trial before, obviously. And he doesn’t wish the Crown to call witnesses — officers or other family members — to come and say what took place.”

Neither the boy nor his cousin can be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Dressed in a maroon sweater and sweatpants, the now 13-year-old boy responded “guilty” in a soft voice after the registrar read out the charge.