TORONTO — The mother of a 13-year-old boy who survived a gunshot wound to the head at Toronto's Eaton Centre has told the trial of the man accused in the shooting that her son went stiff and lost consciousness minutes after he was hit.
Jo-Anne Finney says she was at the mall with her daughter and her son, Connor Stevenson, when she heard multiple gunshots.
She says she dove under a table with her two children, and was then attempting to move back towards a pillar when she noticed a pool of blood on the floor.
Finney says she then saw that her son was awake but wasn't moving, and that he appeared to be bleeding from his head.
At that point, Finney says she asked her son if he had been shot, and put her hand to his head, where she says she felt what appeared to be a bullet.
Christopher Husbands, 25, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and has denied that he went to the mall with the intention of killing anyone.
He is also charged with five counts of aggravated assault, one of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, and one of recklessly discharging a firearm. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges as well.
The trial has heard that his lawyer plans to argue that Husbands was indeed responsible for the deaths and injuries that resulted from the shooting but that it was a "chance encounter'' with a group of five men that prompted him to open fire.
