William Head Institution is shown through a security fence in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Lam
VANCOUVER – A British Columbia Supreme Court jury has found escaped inmate James Lee Busch guilty of the first-degree murder of a Vancouver Island man.
However, what the jury didn’t know was that Zachary Armitage, his co-accused in the killing of 60-year-old Martin Payne, had already pleaded guilty to the same charge midway through the trial.
As Justice David Crossin was thanking jury members for their work, Busch flipped his middle finger at the judge.
Payne was killed on July 8, 2019, a day after Busch and Armitage walked away from William Head Institution, located eight kilometres from the victim’s home in Metchosin on southern Vancouver Island.
The trial began Nov. 14 with both men pleading not guilty to first-degree murder, but two weeks later, Armitage entered a guilty plea without the jury present.
Jury members had been told the Crown was proceeding against the two men on separate indictments and that the murder trial would continue for Busch.
The decision by the jury on Wednesday came about 24 hours after it began its deliberations.
Both the Crown and defence agreed in their closing arguments that the evidence pointed to Armitage being guilty of the murder, but they disagreed on Busch’s role in the killing.
During the trial, Crown attorney Chandra Fisher said Armitage and Busch had planned their attack on Payne in order to get his banking information.
She said in her closing arguments that the two men were “inseparable” and had gathered weapons and duct tape to confine Payne before he was killed.
Unless Payne’s killer was a “master ninja” who could wield three weapons at once, there must have been two attackers in Payne’s home, she told the jury.
Fisher said Payne was larger than both of the men and two of them would have been needed to carry out the crime.
Busch’s lawyers called no evidence in his defence.
In closing statements to the jury, lawyer Ryan Drury said the case against his client was “weak” and “speculative.”
“We say that the Crown is asking you to speculate, to form a theory without firm evidence to support it.”
He said there was nothing about the wounds to Payne that showed they had to be inflicted by two people, and suggested to the jury that Armitage worked alone.
DNA evidence and lack of blood spatter on the Busch’s clothes meant either that he wasn’t in the house, that he didn’t take part in the murder, or his only involvement was in cleaning up the crime scene, Drury said.
The court heard that Busch’s fingerprints were not found inside the house.
However, the Crown had argued that because a pair of New Balance shoes found in the home had tested positive for both Busch and Payne’s DNA, it proved Busch was in the home.
Busch was arrested wearing Payne’s hat and backpack that contained the victim’s house and truck keys, Fisher said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 14, 2022.
