THUNDER BAY - Two days after 17-year-old Braiden Jacob was first reported missing, one of the investigators working in what was then known as the Major Crimes Unit with the Thunder Bay Police Service said he knew the case needed more attention.
“When you’ve done this so many times, there are certain incidents that just don’t add up,” said Christopher Toneguzzi, formerly a detective constable with the Major Crimes Unit at the Thunder Bay Police Service.
“It jumps off the page to you. That was Braiden’s case. I didn’t like where the investigation was at that point and thought we needed to put more time and resources into it.”
Toneguzzi was called to testify by the Crown on the fourth day of the trial against Jonathan Yellowhead, who pleaded not guilty to the charge of manslaughter for his alleged role in Jacob’s death.
Jacob’s body was found in the Chapples Park area on Dec. 9, 2018 and it was determined he died from a combination of hypothermia, blunt facial trauma, and alcohol intoxication.
According to Toneguzzi’s testimony, he started his shift on Dec. 8, 2018 after four days off and was reviewing cases from the previous days. After reading the report into the missing person case involving Jacob, Toneguzzi said he had some issues with the investigation.
“I didn’t like where the investigation was,” he said. “I reached out to our staff sergeant who was on her days off. I said I thought we need to treat this as a major case. I wanted her input and to talk me down, but she said let’s run with this and authorized me to expand the investigative team who were not currently on working days.”
Toneguzzi said the case of Jacob, who was first reported missing on Dec. 6, 2018, was concerning because he was a young man from a remote community missing in a city he was not familiar with.
“Panic mode wasn’t the right word to use, but we knew this was serious,” he said.
Later that afternoon after meeting with the investigative team, Toneguzzi attended a residence in the Limbrick Street area where it was believed Jacob may have been seen last.
After speaking with the owner of the residence, Toneguzzi and several other officers were permitted inside, where they observed blood-like staining on the backside of the door, the door frame, and hallway walls.
Previously testimony by Det. Const. Jeff Tackney detailed collecting swabs of the blood-like staining from the Limbrick Street residence, while a DNA expert said Jacob could not be ruled out as the source of the DNA from one of the swabs taken from the door frame.
The owner of the residence said he did not know how the staining got on the walls or door, but informed police that another male had attended the residence at some point during the night. During an interview with police, he said Yellowhead did attend the residence and was picked up by his father the next day.
A backpack was also seized from the residence with blood-like staining on the front, from which Jacob could not be excluded as the source of the DNA. Video surveillance of the Limbrick area appeared to show Yellowhead with the same backpack the night of Dec. 6.
Toneguzzi said he was also made aware of video surveillance footage from an Arthur Street hotel that showed Yellowhead and Jacob together.
“It was brought to my attention that person of interest Jonathan Yellowhead may have had ties to a gang,” Toneguzzi said. “So we tried to learn as much as we could about Jonathan Yellowhead.”
Investigators attempted to put together a timeline of what happened to Jacob, including who he was with, as well as other individuals known to be close to Yellowhead.
After Jacob’s body was discovered on Dec. 9, Toneguzzi said he attended the scene, as well as telling the court that he had driven through the area the night before.
Toneguzzi added that two other individuals who were known to be close to Yellowhead were also considered persons of interest in the case.
“It was discussed extensively that there may have been more involved than just [Yellowhead],” Toneguzzi said. “I thought it was the three of them. I did not think that Jonathan Yellowhead had acted alone. I constantly voiced my opinion.”
However, attempts to link the other two persons of interest to Jacob’s death, including video surveillance of the area between Chapples Park and a Kingsway Avenue hotel where the other two were staying turned up nothing, Toneguzzi said.
During cross-examination by defense counsel Neil McCartney, Toneguzzi was asked about his initial impressions of the case of Jacob as a missing person.
“Your general impression is that not enough attention had been paid to Braiden Jacob, would that be fair?” McCartney asked.
“No, I don’t think that’s fair at all,” Toneguzzi said. “When I read everything that was being done, I didn’t like it. Not necessarily what the officers did, but it’s just there was something more. On its face, it didn’t seem like it was just a missing kid.”
Toneguzzi was also asked about the perceptions of the Thunder Bay Police Service at that time, particularly relating to criticisms it faced in the handling of missing person or sudden death investigations involving Indigenous youth.
“Because the highly publicized criticisms of the Thunder Bay Police focused on cases just like this, where a young Indigenous person from a remote community is found deceased in the city, don’t you agree that you felt a special level of pressure existed on this investigation to solve this case and get a charge laid?” McCartney asked.
Toneguzzi said that was absolutely not the case, adding that he was the lead investigator into the reinvestigation of nine sudden deaths involving Indigenous people in the city as recommended by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director.
“Things have since changed in the last number of months,” he said. “At that time, there was no discussion and that simply didn’t play into it. When you have a complex death investigation, you follow the evidence in pursuit of the truth, and in this case that is exactly what we did.”
Crown attorney Heather Bracken also called to testify a young woman who said she was at a party at the Arthur Street hotel on Dec. 6 and Yellowhead and Jacob where both there, acting friendly toward one another.
The woman testified that after a window was broken, everyone was kicked out of the hotel room and Yellowhead and Jacob said they were going to the Limbrick Street area.
The woman also testified that she was in an on-again, off-again relationship with one of the other persons of interest who has since passed away in 2019.
After his death, a notebook was found with an entry that said: “I’m a killer, don’t push me, I killed your boyfriend and I am not sorry.”
The woman said she had been speaking online with Jacob since September 2018 and met him for the first time in December. She described Jacob as a friend but did tell police in 2018 that while he wasn’t her boyfriend, the relationship could be heading that way.
McCartney asked the woman if the other person of interest was angry or jealous of Jacob possibly being her boyfriend, to which she agreed, but said he was more sad than anything.
When asked about the journal from the person of interest, which previously referred to the relationship with the woman, she said she believed it to be song lyrics he had written.
The woman said she was also never contacted by police to discuss the contents of the journal.
The Crown is expected to conclude its evidence on Friday.
