Defense says Crown suddenly dropped case against Melissa Sheridan in murder-for-hire plot against her husband because co-accused’s allegations were not credible
A high-profile area murder case ended abruptly yesterday after the Crown attorney dropped the case saying there was no reasonable chance of a conviction.
Melissa Sheridan was charged with first-degree murder in the October 19, 2020, death of her husband, Brant.
Brant’s brother Kerry pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in May, saying he conspired with Sheridan, with whom he is said to have had a sexual relationship, to kill his brother.
Sheridan’s lawyer, Michael Lacy, said the defense was cross-examining the Crown’s only witness, Kerry Burke, when court broke for lunch on Tuesday.
When they returned, Assistant Crown Attorney Stephanie Baker suddenly announced that the case was being dropped because there was no chance of a conviction.
Burke is not credible
Lacy said Kerry Burke made up the whole story of conspiring with Sheridan to murder her husband, her brother.
“Kerry Burke falsely implicated Melissa in the murder in an attempt to deflect blame and responsibility from his own horrific and cowardly act of killing his brother by shooting him twice in the back while they were hunting,” Lacy said in an email online at Sudbury.com. . “His claims that he was asked or hired by my client to do this were unbelievable. He provided false statements to the police about his own involvement in the murder and lied to his family and friends.
“When it became clear that the police were going to discover the truth about what he had done, he had to try to make up some story to explain the inexplicable.”
Lacy added that he believes police should have seen Burke’s story from the beginning, as he is “not a credible person.”
“The fact that the police were initially misled by him to the point of arresting my client, charging her with murder and throwing her in jail until we secured her release is inexplicable,” Lacy said. , who, by the way, is the same lawyer who defended. Gerry Lougheed in the 2016 by-election scandal case.
“Any objective assessment of her claims should have made the police realize what the Crown did yesterday. Kerry Burke is not a credible person. You cannot trust anything she says. Her narrative is nonsense and He alone was responsible for his brother’s murder.”
He said the Crown’s decision to drop the case is a clear vindication by his client.
“My client has waited 18 long months to be vindicated. She was maligned in the media and presumed guilty in the public eye,” Lacy said. “Hopefully, the truth will now be told, as reflected in the dropping of the charges.”
the murder
During court proceedings in May, the court heard that Brant Burke was found dead, face down over a .308 caliber rifle with two gunshot wounds to his body, one in the upper left side of his back and the other on the back left shoulder. The Burke brothers had been moose hunting along a trail on unceded Wiikwemkoong Territory land near Killarney.
Kerry Burke claimed she had sex twice with Sheridan before she asked him to “get rid of the problem” (the “problem” being her husband) and promised her ownership of the house she shared with her husband and $10,000 in return.
In the statement, Kerry said he was “stunned” by the request.
About a month later, Kerry and Sheridan had sex again, and that’s when she agreed to kill her brother, the court heard.
When he was arrested, Kerry told police he used a .30-06 caliber rifle Sheridan gave him.
Kerry said that after he shot and killed his brother, Sheridan took the rifle and he no longer has it.
For months, Kerry contemplated killing his brother, the court heard, and the decision to do so came on October 19, 2020, when they were hunting moose. Around 9 a.m., as they walked along a trail, with Brant ahead of Kerry, Kerry shot his brother from behind. The first shot was from the hip, and he then fired a second shot to “finish him off,” the court heard.
After Kerry’s arrest, police seized several firearms from his home, but they were ruled out as the gun that fired the bullet casing found at the scene.
A provincial police dive team searched waterways below bridges along Highway 637 near the scene of the killing on May 24, 2021. Divers found a bolt-action rifle from .308 caliber with a scope attached matching the description provided by Kerry. It was sent to the Forensic Science Center for analysis. It could not be ruled out that a rifle was used to fire the bullet jacket seized by police at the scene, but it could not be categorically confirmed as the murder weapon.
After her arrest, Sheridan was held in custody for more than a month before being released on bail conditions Lacy called “the most restrictive bail order imaginable”.
As part of his release, Sheridan was required to live with one of his four sureties, not change his address without another court order and surrender his passport to the Ontario Provincial Police within 24 hours upon his release.
She was also required to remain at her residence at all times unless in the immediate presence of one or more of her guarantors or for medical emergencies requiring transportation to a hospital. He was banned from communicating directly or indirectly with a list of 13 people and from possessing weapons or ammunition.
In addition, Sheridan was required to have an operational landline telephone at her residence and, when alone at her residence, answer the telephone immediately if it rings. Within 24 hours of her release and at her expense, she had to be equipped with a GPS monitoring device and wear it at all times. He was not to attend within 50 yards of two members of the Burke family.
Melanie Burke, Brant Brant’s oldest daughter, told Sudbury.com in May that it was “beyond frustrating” to see her uncle, Kerry Burke, plead guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder after initially being charged with first degree murder.
Sheridan is quite well known in the region. Since 2001, she has been the president of CRCS Recreation in Sudbury, a company that provides professional playground consulting and park design services. The company has built hundreds of playgrounds, splash pads, sports facilities and park furniture sites in Northern Ontario.
In 2017, Sheridan received a 40 Under Forty award from Northern Ontario Business. In addition to CRCS Recreation, he was a Northern Ontario representative agency for Miracle Recreation and Little Tikes Commercial. In addition, Sheridan was the park leader at Kivi Park, serving as a liaison with non-profit organizations to plan and execute events, working with donors and sponsors to continually expand the park’s athletic facilities and beautification efforts. park and act as a spokesperson for Kivi Park.
Kerry Burke
Kerry Burke, meanwhile, was due to be sentenced on July 25, but has now been delayed until October 26, pending the completion of a Gladue report.
“My understanding is that the Gladue report had some delays due to deadlocks and other issues,” Judge Erin Cullen told the court last Tuesday.
The court is working to ensure that “all necessary parties have been consulted by the report writers and have had an opportunity to provide input.”
Gladue reports provide information about an Indigenous person’s background for the court’s consideration before sentencing and may include suggestions about the appropriate sentence. They are usually 25 pages or more and take six to eight weeks to prepare.
Burke’s Gladue report was ordered on May 10, which was almost 11 weeks ago.
Defense attorney Glenn Sandberg argued that the Gladue report is important because of the seriousness of the charges, which Cullen agreed with.