Day of taxi stops ended with a stabbing, says Crown at start of Craig Pope murder trial

Jonathan Collins spent his last day on earth in the back of a taxi, riding around St. John's with the man accused of killing him.

Collins, 36, and Craig Pope made several stops on Sept. 7, 2017, before a fight broke out. Minutes later, Collins was lying dead on Mundy Pond Road.

That's according to Crown prosecutor Shawn Patten, who gave his opening statements Tuesday morning in Pope's second-degree murder trial.

Patten said the last stop was on Alderberry Lane, a small street off the main drag. He said witnesses will testify a van pulled up, driven by Pope's father, and money was handed in through the window.

The cab driver is expected to testify a fight then broke out between the two passengers whom Patten said he will match to descriptions of Pope and Collins and the man matching Pope's description grabbed the keys, jumped out the car and took his shirt off.

The first witness to testifysaid she was coming to the corner of Alderberry Lane and Mundy Pond Roadwhen she sawCollins backing away from Pope. Both men were swinging their fists, she said, and then Collins fell to the ground.

Const. Trevor Kennedy, a two-year officer with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, was the first on scene.

He looked at Collins, lying seemingly lifelesslyon the ground, and spotted a small stab wound on the left side of his stomach.

"It wasn't very big," Kennedy told the jury. "But it was clean, it was precise and you could clearly see it was deep."

Collins was frothing at the mouth and his pulse was weak. Aside from the stab wound, Kennedy thought he might be overdosing.

He gave him a shot of Naloxone, a drug to counteract opioid overdoses. He said Collins showed some signs of consciousness after that, but was never fully alert.

Kennedy stayed with Collins as he was loaded into an ambulance. During the ride to the hospital, Kennedy said Collins looked him in the eye, smiled and flashed him a peace sign. A second later, his vitals crashed.

The police officer began to cry as he unveiled those details in front of the jury, judge, and gallery. Members of Collins's family weeped loudly, with some leaving the courtroom.

Where was the knife?

Despite all the eyewitness testimony to come in the trial,nobody will say they saw a knife, said Patten.

He said the cab driver will likely testify he then drove Pope to an area of St. John's, off Elizabeth Avenue, known as "the courts," where he was dropped off and subsequently arrested by police.

Neither witness on Tuesday said there was any sign of a weapon at the scene, but there was a backpack on the ground with some sundry items spilling out.

Members from both families were in attendance, sitting on opposite wingsof the courtroom with emotions high on both sides. A sheriff warned a woman from Pope's familyin the morning not to speak to him while he's in the prisoner's box.

A jury of 16 people was selected on Monday, but three were already dismissed by Tuesday morning.

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