By: Jane Sims, London Free Press, and Doug Schmidt, Windsor Star
A London judge on Monday was set to convict a Windsor man of manslaughter in the shooting death of another man near an east London bar in 2020.
But Jason Sylvestre, 39, wasn’t in court to hear the guilty verdict, four years to the day Scotty Pate, 27, was shot to death after picking up food at the East West Bar & Grill on Oct. 7, 2020.
The accused Windsor man was himself killed the night of Saturday, Sept. 7, after his motorcycle collided with a pickup truck shortly after 11 p.m. at the intersection of Lauzon Parkway and Lauzon Line in east Windsor.
News of Sylvestre’s recent sudden death, and then the acquittals of two co-accused, stunned Pate’s loved ones at a London court Monday, and they stormed out of the courtroom in frustration.
Following a trial that began last October of the three co-accused, all of whom had been free on bail, Justice Patricia Moore told the court on Monday she would have convicted Sylvestre of manslaughter in Pate’s death.
Co-accused Denny Doucet and Nicole Meyer, both of London, were each acquitted on charges of conspiracy to commit robbery and manslaughter.
Surveillance video shown during the three-week London trial showed Pate entering the East West at about 8:29 p.m. the night of Oct. 7, 2020. He leaves a short time later and then returns a second time for about 10 minutes.
Bartender Tammi-Lynn Stevens soon comes out of the restaurant with Pate’s order, three pounds of chicken wings, then moves out of frame. She previously testified she handed the food to Pate, who was in the backseat of a black sedan parked in the rear lot, an area not covered by surveillance cameras.
Video surveillance showed a silver sedan pulling into the restaurant’s parking lot at 8:51 p.m., then turning around and parking nearby on Ashland Avenue.
The black car pulls out of the parking lot and turns onto Dundas Street after the food is handed over, while someone can be seen moving outside the silver car on Ashland Avenue before it speeds away.
The bartender reappears outside the bar two minutes later as police cruisers pull up to where the silver car was parked. Stevens testified to seeing Pate’s body on the street, and another witness told the court he heard a gunshot from his apartment.
London police found one man on the street, suffering from a life-threatening gunshot wound.
Windsor police officers responding to last month’s Lauzon motorcycle/pickup collision discovered two injured individuals on the road. After both were transported to hospital, the motorcycle driver was pronounced dead, while a 35-year-old female motorcycle passenger was listed with non-life-threatening injuries.
The initial police investigation revealed the pickup truck driver was attempting to turn eastbound at the intersection when it collided with a motorcycle travelling northbound on Lauzon Parkway.
Windsor Police Service reported that the pickup driver was arrested and taken to police headquarters, where he failed a breath test. He faces multiple charges, including impaired operation of a conveyance causing death and impaired operation of a conveyance causing bodily harm.
According to a funeral notice, Sylvestre’s remains were cremated, the family requesting donations, if desired, be given to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “Jason will be very sadly missed,” the family said in an online obituary.
In the spring following Pate’s killing, Sylvestre pleaded guilty in a Windsor courtroom and was sentenced to jail for garage and smashed-window vehicle burglaries committed in the city over several nights in July 2020. Before he could be arrested and charged on those matters, however, he led Windsor police on a 3.5-kilometre chase that included a jaunt through a farm field.
Following his release, he remained under house arrest pending conclusion of the London manslaughter case.