THUNDER BAY - Brayden Bushby will stand before a 12-person jury in early 2020 to answer to a charge of second-degree for his alleged role in the 2017 death of Barbara Kentner.
The trial, scheduled to open on January 13, 2020, nearly three years after the initial incident, is expected to take three weeks. Pre-trial applications will be filed in early September of this year.
Bushby, 20, is facing a charge of second-degree murder for allegedly throwing a metal trailer hitch from a moving vehicle that struck Kentner in the abdomen while she was walking in the Cameron Street area on the night of January 28, 2017.
Kentner later died in July 2017. She was 34-years-old.
Bushby was first charged with aggravated assault but following a review of the case by the Crown and Thunder Bay Police Service with assistance by the Regional Coroner’s Office, the charge was upgraded to second-degree murder.
Last January, a judge ruled following a preliminary hearing held the previous September that there was enough evidence to commit Bushby to stand trial on the charge of second-degree murder.
Counsel representing Bushby filed a certiorari application in May, arguing the presiding judge at the preliminary hearing erred in his ruling and the committal should have been on the lesser charge of manslaughter.
That application was rejected by Justice Bruce Fitzpatrick, who ruled the preliminary hearing judge did not exceed his jurisdictions when committing Bushby to stand trial on the second-degree murder charge.
Bushby was released on bail in November 2017.
