Just Some Girls Out for a Night of Fun and Entertainment

"None of you are going to be leaving anytime soon."

       "We can't leave?"

"There is an ongoing investigation about an incident at York and University [streets, Toronto]."

"Somebody was stabbed and he's dead."

       "He's not dead."

       "That was not us."

"None of you are leaving until we sort things out."

        "[Is it a] boy [or a] girl [who's dead]?"

        "I didn't kill nobody."

        "Yo, it was f---ing this b---h right here."

        "Nobody killed nobody are you crazy?"

"You're being arrested for homicide."

Body-worn video footage officers of the Toronto Police Service

The girl entered a surprise plea in February as she and another teen were being tried for second-degree murder in the death of 59-year-old Kenneth Lee in December 2022. The attack allegedly involved eight girls. (Toronto Police Service)

 

In Toronto, December 17/18, 2022, eight girls ranging in age between 13 to 16 made the front pages of newspapers across Canada, and the news made its appearance in international media as well, spreading the shocking disbelief that teen-age girls harassed, swarmed, beat and one among them fatally stabbed a homeless man in a girls'-night-out escapade. Kenneth Lee, a homeless man, living in the city's shelter system, was sitting beside a female acquaintance when they both were surrounded by the girls, who appeared to make a move to grab a bottle of alcohol from the woman, and Mr. Lee tried to protect his friend.

 

That turned the attention of the girls from the woman to the man. This was 59-year-old Kenneth Lee, who died suddenly in a parkette, bothering no one, carrying on with his life in a way that circumstances led him to, when fate placed him before a group of rampaging female teens who were out to entertain themselves that night. With the girls was a recent acquaintance, a 16-year-old boy, who during the latest trial of the girl who struck the fatal blow gave his testimony of the night as he perceived it. In Canadian law minors under 18 cannot be publicly named.

"I've been in policing for almost 35 years and you think you've seen it all."

"Anyone who isn't shocked with hearing something like this has clearly just thrown in the towel and just said that anything is possible in this world. "

"Eight young girls and most under the age of 16. If this isn't alarming and shocking to everyone, then we're all in trouble quite frankly."

Detective Sgt. Terry Browne of the Toronto Police Service Homicide Squad  

The girls, it seemed to him, were not their usual selves; they had been drinking and smoking weed. The girl accused of the deadly stabbing of Mr. Lee had a knife with her. And after the swarming attack, during a play fight between the group that they seemed to frequently enjoy indulging in on their nights out, the girl who had stabbed Mr. Lee, injured him. "I put my arm up, the knife went in", he said. The boy was taken into custody at the Yorkdale subway station; he and several of the girls were chasing one another playfully up and down the platform.

 

After the attack that victimized Mr. Lee leaving him bleeding to death, the group of teens were seen on video footage loitering downtown in an office lobby on Bay Street, taking videos of themselves laughing and dancing. It was at this time that the girl accused of the stabbing mimics stomping motions toward the cellphone camera, red bloodstains seen on her grey sweatpants. She was referencing having stomped on Kenneth Lee during the swarming attack, before stabbing him. She was 14 years old at the time, 16 when the case when to trial.

 

As Mr. Lee was backed into a concrete planter in the parkette, she was seen on an earlier surveillance video leaping with both feet, appearing to stomp on Kenneth Lee. An hour after the swarming, just after 1:00 a.m. the teens returned to Union Station for more playfighting. At one point in the video the boy was seen bent over, the girls gathering around him. "Wrong movements at the  wrong time", he said of having been stabbed while play-fighting.

 

His forearm had been sliced through by the knife. The girls helped him back into the station, brought his injury to the attention of security guards, called 911 to say their friend had been stabbed. Then they followed the boy to Sick Children's Hospital for treatment of his bloodied wrist, where it was stitched up. He testified that he too had been drinking and smoking weed, and perhaps it had affected his memory of that night.

 

While the girls were in the lobby of SickKids, officers began arriving to investigate them, at around 3:00 a.m. The girls were not informed straight off they were being scrutinized, nor did they cue into the fact that the police were there because of their presence, wanting to determine whether they were involved in the death of the homeless man. Finally one of the girls asked an officer if she could talk to someone in the hospital lobby, and the girls understood something was wrong when they were told they were being detained. 

 

In the end, although Ontario Superior Court Justice Philip Campbell declared that it hadn't been proven beyond a reasonable doubt the girl dealt the fatal slash to Kenneth Lee, that she had the state of mind for murder during the attack, he was led to find that "This was a manslaughter, and was very close to the most serious example of that offence, but it was not a murder", delivering the verdict. While he could not exclude the possibility the girl was responsible for the fatal wound, he could not conclude she had possessed a knife. She had disposed of the knife and was in possession of a small pair of scissors. 

         "Is it a Chinese man?"

"It's a very serious matter. I'm gonna read you your rights in the car, OK?"

"My job here is to find out exactly what happened."

          "Do I have to answer?"

          "I can't look at people when I talk to them ... It makes me uncomfortable."

"Do you want to just tell me what happened?"

          "I want to see what happened [via the video]. "I remember, but just don't remember."

"He dies after this, from what happened to him. He suffered stab wounds ... Did you stab him?"

          Silence 

Detective leading prison interrogation 

"She had a weapon and a demonstrated willingness to use it against Mr. Lee."

"She was pressing hard to get close to Mr. Lee, scissors in hand. Her animus toward him was high. She made a distinct upward gesture with the hand holding the scissors [referencing how he perceived the video]."

"It is the inconsistency between the wound and the weapon, and the inability to eliminate
conclusively a wound by another person using another weapon, that leaves me undecided as to who stabbed Mr. Lee in the heart, and how."

"[Watching the video of the attack left him] struck by the irrational viciousness [of the group's
conduct and the girl's use of the scissors as a weapon]."

"Yet, this does not lead me to the conclusion that she had the state of mind for murder. The word 'murder' is not a shorthand for an extreme level of moral failure or a high degree of viciousness." 

Ontario Superior Court Justice Philip Campbell  

Ken Lee, centre, seen here with his family, was stabbed to death during a swarming in downtown Toronto on Dec. 18, 2022. Photo by Handout