A jury has found the 90-year-old’s grandson not guilty of second-degree murder.
Marlene Wilson, 90, was stabbed to death inside her Waterford home in 2023.
Beckett-Glaves Family Funeral Centre
By J.P. Antonacci Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Accused murderer Jordaine Wilson held his own through several hours of blistering
cross-examination from Crown prosecutor Brian McGuire.
But it was Wilson who got in the last word.
Moments after being found not guilty of killing his 90-year-old grandmother,
Marlene Wilson, in their Waterford home two years ago, the newly freed Wilson
was sitting outside the Simcoe courtroom Tuesday night when McGuire strode past
him toward the exit.
“Have a good evening, Mr. McGuire,” Wilson said, just loud enough to be heard.
That stopped the veteran prosecutor in his tracks.
“Boy, oh, boy,” McGuire said, turning sharply toward Wilson and shaking his head.
“You are one lucky guy.”
McGuire had just finished telling reporters he was “shocked” the jury of four men
and eight women found Wilson not guilty after about eight hours of deliberation.
“That is a strange verdict,” McGuire said, claiming the Crown proved its case.
Marlene Wilson died the morning of Feb. 12, 2023, after being stabbed three times
in the chest.
Jordaine Wilson, now 36, was arrested five days later and charged with first-degree
murder, though the Crown requested a change to second-degree murder after the
preliminary hearing in February.
Prosecutors did not offer a motive. The Crown’s case was based on circumstantial
forensic evidence, including a kitchen knife found under Jordaine Wilson’s bed that
had his DNA on the handle and trace amounts of Marlene Wilson’s blood on the
hilt.
McGuire told reporters there was “no basis for appeal” of the verdict.
For his part, Wilson said he was “extremely happy” to soon be back home with his
family, with whom he has had a no-contact order since his arrest.
“There’s nothing I’d rather be doing,” he said, adding he would spend the night at
his mother’s house in Waterford.
His mother and brother testified as Crown witnesses.
Wilson had no relatives in the courtroom when the verdict was read out, but some
family members were watching on Zoom.
Fuelled by a dinner of Swiss Chalet, jurors continued deliberating into the night,
finally sending a note to Justice Michael McArthur at 8:25 p.m. saying they had
reached an unanimous verdict.
Wilson sat quietly as the jury filed in, refilling his water glass several times, his
hand shaking slightly.
He showed little reaction as the jury foreperson announced the verdict.
“I’m still trying to take in what happened,” Wilson told reporters outside the
courtroom. “Everything happened so fast.”
Defence lawyer Robb MacDonald said he was “elated” with the verdict.
“I think the jury clearly did their job. When you really apply the burden of proof
here, I think an acquittal was necessary in the circumstances,” MacDonald said.
“They were a very attentive jury, and I really appreciate their efforts. This is a
wonderful result.”
Marlene Wilson was found unresponsive in her bathroom, propped up in the
bathtub, the soapy water still warm when first responders got to the scene.
Jurors heard the warm water delayed rigor mortis, making it difficult for
pathologists to determine exactly when Wilson died.
Blood on the victim’s mattress and splattered on the walls of her bedroom suggested
she was killed in her bed and moved to the bathroom.
Marlene Wilson shared the home with her daughter, Wendy Thomas, two
grandsons — Jordaine Wilson and Malik Thomas — and a live-in caregiver, Katie
McPherson.
Marlene Wilson, 90, was killed inside this Waterford home in February 2023.
J.P. Antonacci The Hamilton Spectator
The defence drew the jury’s attention to McPherson, a personal support worker
who lost her job at a local long-term-care home around the time of the murder and
owed Marlene Wilson several months’ worth of back rent.
It was McPherson who discovered Wilson’s unresponsive body in the tub, court
heard, though neither she nor Jordaine Wilson called 911, waiting instead for
Thomas to get home and summon first responders.
Jurors heard McPherson was trained in how to move a body in a bedsheet as part of
her work. The elderly Wilson was accustomed to sleeping atop a fitted sheet, but no
sheet was ever found, despite an exhaustive search of the home and property.
Jordaine Wilson and McPherson both testified they were not in Marlene Wilson’s
will and did not benefit financially from her death.
The police investigation quickly focused on Jordaine Wilson.
Officers discovered blood-soaked paper towel in a wastebasket outside Wilson’s
basement bedroom, which was right beside the laundry room where his clothes
were found inside the blood-smeared washing machine, intermingled with the
clothes Marlene Wilson was wearing when she was stabbed.
Jordaine Wilson was the only occupant of the house who could not be ruled out as
the source of a bloody partial fingerprint on the toilet flusher near the victim’s body.
“I think there was a lot of evidence that we had to answer for, so I can understand
why (the case) was prosecuted,” MacDonald said. “But I think that there was
reasonable doubt.”
The accused chose to take the stand in his own defence, and McGuire hammered
Wilson on differences between his testimony in court and the statement he gave to
police on the day Marlene Wilson was found dead.
McGuire made special mention of Wilson initially telling police he was too upset to
enter the bathroom, but changing his story on the witness stand to say he knelt by
his grandmother’s inert body and touched one of her open wounds.
That was convenient revisionist history designed to explain away “damning forensic
evidence” like the bloody fingerprint, McGuire said.
Conversely, MacDonald pointed out several instances where Wilson could have lied
on the stand to provide a cover story for incriminating evidence — such as his DNA
being on the murder weapon and a trace amount of blood ending up on his shoe —
but he chose not to.
The jury ultimately decided Jordaine Wilson did not wake up and kill his
grandmother some six hours after the two had shared hot chocolate and chatted
about family history.
Wilson was facing a mandatory life sentence if found guilty. Instead, court officers
removed his leg shackles and he walked out of the courtroom a free man.
“You’re free to go,” McArthur said.
With his acquittal, the murder of Marlene Wilson remains unsolved.
J.P. Antonacci’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism
Initiative. The funding allows him to report on stories about the regions of Haldimand and
Norfolk. Reach him at jpantonacci@thespec.com.
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