ANNOUNCER: This program is rated 14+, and contains
scenes of violence and mature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.
[gunshots]
[phone line ringing]
We still don't know at this point if there is one suspect,
multiple suspects.
This was a drive-by shooting,
so everything happened very fast.
[Mike Patterson] We are four hours
after the murder happened.
We have video. We have a suspect vehicle.
[Steve Henkel] They were at a loss as to why
Jermaine would be targeted.
He worked at a restaurant. He had a son.
There was nothing that would indicate that he would be
the target of a homicide or a shooting.
[Patterson] I had set up the press conference
for five o'clock, but I'm purposely going slow
because I am waiting anxiously for
that fifth surveillance team to get put in place.
[tense music]
Welcome to Crime Beat. I'm Antony Robart.
Tonight, the first 48 hours
of any homicide investigation are critical,
so in 2018, when the city of Toronto
experiences a surge of murders,
detectives are pushed to the brink
to make those hours count,
especially on one summer day when a bold and reckless
act of violence leaves one man dead
and another on the run.
Here now is Catherine McDonald with "Four Little Words."
♪
I don't know where...
August 22nd, 2018 was a Wednesday
much like many other Wednesdays working on other cases.
Team four was on call number one,
which meant the next homicide in the City of Toronto
was going to be ours.
[gunshots]
[John Barnes] At that time, I was a neighbourhood officer
at 12th Division, and that morning,
I was doing paperwork at the station.
I have the radio beside me, I hear the call come over
I believe at 9:55 in the morning
of a shooting on Weston Road,
and there's a vehicle stopped with somebody shot inside.
That's kind of an all-hands-on-deck thing,
so I went and grabbed some keys, grabbed a car,
hopped out on the road as quickly as I could.
[sirens wailing]
I got to the scene approximately ten minutes
after the call came over.
There's a lot of uniformed officers there already.
Weston Road had been completely shut down.
Some officers are talking to witnesses.
Um, other officers are controlling traffic.
So I started looking for video surveillance.
♪
[Henkel] At 10:10 a.m., I received a call
that there was a shooting in 12 Division
with multiple sounds of gunshots.
[Patterson] The information that was coming across
quite quickly was that shooting happened
as a result of a drive-by.
One individual had been shot
and it was believed to be fatal.
[Henkel] We ensured that Forensic Identification
Services were notified, that the scene was secure,
and that a canvass for witnesses
and closed-circuit TV had started.
[Barnes] I was able to find a camera right there.
There's a used car dealership.
I saw the cameras pointing out to Weston Road.
I went inside right away.
The cameras were working fine,
and they captured a clear image of what took place.
And what I saw was a light-coloured SUV
that looked to be silver, possibly a light blue.
I could tell that it was a Mazda CX-5
driving north on Jane Street.
[McDonald] The intersection of Jane and Weston is unusual.
Even though they cross, because of their angles,
they both run north-south.
[Barnes] It stops at the lights at Weston Road,
and then it makes a right-hand turn.
So now it comes south on Weston Road.
It comes past the car dealership,
and then it actually makes a U-turn,
and you see a handgun emerge
from the driver window of the car.
And within seconds, then you see the white car
that was passing stop in the middle of Weston Road.
Then our SUV accelerates north out of the picture.
[McDonald] Something puzzled him.
When the suspect turned onto Weston,
he was in front of the victim, who was stopped at a red light
north of the intersection about five cars back.
[Barnes] So I was having a hard time understanding
how the suspect vehicle could have known the victim vehicle
was where it was, if it was the target of the shooting.
As the suspect vehicle comes down Weston Road
and then makes a U-turn, there's no way
it could've known where the victim vehicle was situated.
So that part wasn't making sense to me.
It looked like that gun came out at a specific time.
Right before then you see a couple of taps
of the brakes as well, of the suspect vehicle,
which would indicate that it's slowing down briefly.
[McDonald] Because it did,
the license plate was mostly visible.
[Barnes] So I ran out to one of the police cars
and I ran the partial license plate looking for a Mazda CX-5,
and I located one.
[McDonald] The plate was CCBX444,
and it was indeed silver.
[Barnes] It was registered to a rental car company
in the northwest end of the city,
not too far from where we're located at that time,
maybe a 10-, 15-minute drive north.
♪
[Henkel] I had received by 10:30 the name of the deceased,
the fact that there was a passenger in the vehicle,
and that the passenger had been transported
to 12th Division for an interview,
the scene had been contained,
and that video canvass was already in the works.
So we already had a suspect vehicle
and a direction of travel.
[McDonald] The deceased was a 32-year-old man
named Jermaine Titus.
He had died of a single gunshot wound to the head
as he was driving his car.
The passenger beside him was unharmed.
[Patterson] After hanging up the phone,
a flurry of activity.
Doing all these database checks,
putting together the best picture that we could
to understand who the victim was and who the passenger was
and what connection they might have to any criminality
that might help explain why
something like this could happen.
[Henkel] There's really nothing surfacing
that would suggest that, you know, he's a gang member
or something obvious that would indicate
that he should be the target of a potential shooting.
There's nothing of that sort that sticks out to us.
♪
By 11:40, Mike and I start making our way
directly from headquarters to the scene.
[Patterson] It took approximately 30 minutes,
and when we pulled up to the scene, it was as described.
Yeah, we were coming this way on Jane,
and then we made a left onto Weston,
and then we stopped pretty much right over here.
I think the scout car was set up right here.
- [Henkel] Yeah. - I believe it was a Volvo
that was facing this way on Weston.
And we had Jermaine Titus's vehicle,
the Lexus, the white Lexus.
And I remember when I got here, I was scanning the area
before we went into the crime scene tape.
This is what concerned me here, is the backstop,
the residential housing, and, you know,
the original 911 call, potentially three shots.
This is about where Jermaine's vehicle ended up.
Right here, right across these two lanes.
Front end of the vehicle straddling both lanes
at a 45-degree angle.
[Patterson] Looking in and seeing Jermaine in the vehicle
and where the shot placement was on him,
do you remember thinking at first this was
like an execution-style-- like, there must have been--
- It was a targeted hit. - Right.
It didn't look believable,
because two vehicles passing by at,
I don't know, 30, 40 kilometres an hour on a road,
and somebody being able to drive one of those vehicles
and shoot one-handed with a handgun
out the window with any sort of precision
on a person in a vehicle moving the other way, it just--
it doesn't seem possible.
If I watched that in a movie, I wouldn't have believed it.
[Henkel] There was a round
that had gone through the driver's side window.
There was a heavy tint on it,
so the window was intact yet shattered,
and the deceased was slumped over
on the driver's side of the vehicle.
[Patterson] What I noticed was Jermaine Titus in the seat.
It was reclined quite far back.
It played into the way we were thinking.
Like, here's a heavily tinted window,
a shot through that window, a person leaned back quite far.
I'm thinking, "Is it him that they're targeting?
Is it the passenger they're targeting?"
The shooter would've had to have known who was in the car.
So that is playing into my mind at the time.
[Henkel] We had met with our forensic officers,
who had walked us through.
There was a. 45 calibre shell casing located at the scene,
some bullet fragments.
The original information is that
there were three shots fired.
Where did these extra rounds go?
The passenger of Jermaine Titus's vehicle,
he, from what I understand, when the officers arrived,
was sitting on the curb, unbelievably distraught.
He could not explain what happened,
could not explain why it happened.
He was covered in fluids as a result of the shooting,
so he was brought to the station
not only to provide him some help,
but to give him a moment to gather his thoughts
and then provide us with some information.
[McDonald] Investigators spoke with several witnesses
at the scene and canvassed for more security footage,
hoping to track where the suspect vehicle had fled.
[Patterson] John Barnes was able to identify very quickly
that it was a rental and where this rental was from.
When you have a lead like this, you run fast to chase it down.
♪
Welcome back. 32-year-old Jermaine Titus was shot
while driving in the morning rush hour
by someone in a passing car.
In less than an hour, police have identified
the suspect's vehicle and are racing to find the killer.
Here again is Catherine McDonald
with "Four Little Words."
[tense music]
[Patterson] I asked a "be on the lookout," or a BOLO, go out
about that vehicle so that every police officer in Ontario
would have that information, because we have someone who
has shot what appears to be a completely innocent individual
in the middle of the city in the middle of rush hour,
and I didn't know what they were capable of.
[Henkel] So we leave the scene shortly after twelve o'clock.
We make our way to 12 Division.
♪
[Patterson] Frankie's interview,
he seems completely oblivious to what happened.
I mean, there was no indication from the sounds of it
that anything like this was about to happen.
[Henkel] We were briefed upon arriving
by one of the major crime unit investigators who had
interviewed the passenger in the vehicle with the deceased.
Jermaine Titus was a friend of the passenger.
Jermaine was driving his friend to work.
There was nothing more than that.
[Patterson] Mr. Titus had picked him up
with his six-year-old son
and had dropped off the son to school,
and then the shooting happened shortly thereafter.
Thank God the child wasn't in that car as well.
We still don't know at this point
if there is one suspect, multiple suspects.
This was a drive-by shooting,
so everything happened very fast.
[Patterson] I'm sitting there thinking,
"I have an individual who has shot somebody.
How do I prove that it was that individual in the car,
and that that person was alone?"
[McDonald] They learn more from a witness who happened to be
parking along Weston when the shooting occurred.
Jermaine's car had come to a stop right in front of him.
Less than a minute before, he had been cut off
by the suspect vehicle when they both turned onto Weston
at the same time from opposite directions.
As he pulls to the curb lane,
he sees the car make its U-turn
but looks away in order to park.
He hears the shots fired
and turns his head back just as it speeds away.
[Patterson] He got a good look at the driver
of the suspect vehicle, and he was able to describe him
with some degree of certainty with regards to skin tone,
hair, but most importantly, was able to tell us that
there was nobody else in the front seat of that car.
We are four hours after the murder happened.
We have video. We have a suspect vehicle.
Evidence to prove that it was one individual.
Shell casings.
This case is coming together very quickly.
♪
Detective Sergeant Patterson.
[McDonald] Not long after, another revelation.
It's the guy from the rental agency.
[Henkel] Rental car company was extremely cooperative.
Buddy, there's video.
There's video and there's a contract. Okay.
[Henkel] By 2:20 that afternoon, we find out that
the car had been rented out on August 18th, 2022,
so three, four days prior.
The car had been rented by a woman.
But the person who had rented the car
was not the one who paid for the vehicle.
It was an independent third-party woman as well.
And when the CCTV footage is reviewed,
we've got a male and a female
at the counter renting the vehicle.
The male is on the video
carrying a distinctive satchel across his body.
Having been doing this for quite some time,
I've been involved in a number of shootings and homicides
where individuals are known to carry guns
within these type of messenger bag satchels.
So that was obviously a key thing for me.
Staff had identified the female as the individual
who filled out the contract and rented the vehicle.
The male at that point in time is unknown to us.
[McDonald] Officers begin background checks on the women
and uncover a connection between the renter
and a man named Shamoi Palmer.
[Patterson] And it turns out Shamoi has a criminal record
with quite a bit of violence on it.
As we're hearing this, you start thinking,
"Okay, is this a gang shooting? Is this an individual
who was out in conflict with another gang member?"
But nothing that we could find
on Jermaine Titus indicated that.
So the "why" is still in the air.
We didn't know.
[McDonald] One of the field investigators
pulls a mugshot of Palmer.
[Patterson] And he was able to determine that the individual
that was with the renter at the time of the vehicle
being picked up was Shamoi Palmer.
We had a possible suspect.
Perfect. I'll send you an email right now
and I'll send you all those particulars.
[Patterson] So we start researching
where Shamoi might be.
What addresses is he associated to?
[Henkel] The female who had rented the car
was living in the east end of the city.
I started organizing surveillance teams now
to go to the address in the east end of the city.
We started doing the same thing in multiple other areas.
We identified that the person who had paid for the rental car
was a woman by the name of Egypt Morgan.
The investigative team had traced that credit card to
an address that was 450 metres from the crime scene.
[McDonald] Investigators go to that apartment building
and speak to the superintendent,
who gives them access to the security footage.
[Patterson] The officer identified
Egypt coming and going.
He was able to back up and see her leaving
just shortly before the murder.
[Henkel] And just prior to the homicide,
they observed Shamoi Palmer wearing the same satchel,
on the phone, running down the lobby,
exiting the front lobby doors.
[McDonald] Exterior cameras caught him
as he crossed the parking lot,
racing out seconds later in the silver Mazda,
making his way onto Jane Street northbound.
He's seen in the lobby at approximately 9:52, 9:53 a.m.
The shooting, the first 911 call's at 9:55,
so the time frame is very short.
[Patterson] So now I am hyper-focused on 55 Emmett.
I have video evidence
of who I believe to be Shamoi Palmer at that address.
But I don't have any surveillance officers
at this point to sit on that address.
♪
As we're finding this out,
we get a call from our same investigative team.
They receive a call from the rental car company,
and the car had just been returned.
And we're now at 5:00 p.m., 5:30 p.m. in the evening.
[Patterson] So an hour and a half before
an individual had dropped off the CX-5,
I sent the detective back there.
He called me, said, "Yep, the vehicle's here."
And sure enough, on video,
there is an individual dropping off the CX-5
and using his elbow to close the driver door.
Taking efforts to not leave fingerprints is the theory.
The detective is able to clearly identify
that it's Shamoi Palmer.
[Henkel] The video shows him exiting the parking lot
onto the roadway, and now we've got a new area
to start canvassing along to see if we can get
last direction of travel and see if anyone had picked him up
or if he'd gone into a cab or public transit.
I get a phone call a short time later
from a very excited detective who says they have located
a shell casing that is lodged on the windshield.
Now we're looking for Shamoi Palmer.
We have overwhelming evidence at this point
to suggest he is the individual that pulled the trigger.
♪
[tense music]
You would think the main channel, the channel one--
Can you check the video file?
Between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. that day,
we are reviewing CCTV footage.
We're delegating tasks.
Actually, isn't this the footage from the 7-Eleven?
I ask that undercover officers set up at all the different
addresses that Shamoi has ever been associated to.
We really appreciate your help.
We just don't want him to slip through our fingers here.
[Patterson] And now we're talking seven or eight hours
after the actual murder. This is unheard of.
But there was so much going on in the city at the time,
getting surveillance officers was really difficult.
[phone ringing]
Detective Sergeant Patterson.
We get most of the addresses covered, but not all.
A black satchel...
Because of the public safety risk, we start pinging phones.
Okay, thanks.
Okay.
- I think we got it. - Awesome. Awesome.
The number that we had for Shamoi Palmer,
it had been off for a significant amount of time
and was not showing any current location.
♪
Shortly after 7:00 p.m.,
we're confident with the identification of Mr. Titus,
and Mike Patterson arranges for a sergeant to go
and do the death notification to the family.
[McDonald] In the meantime, they make a critical call.
[Patterson] So, clearly see it. Looks like the...
8:05 that night,
just ten-plus hours after the murder occurred,
we informed all the officers that were assisting
with monitoring the addresses of where Shamoi was
that he is arrestable on sight for first-degree murder.
Detective Henkel. Yeah.
We continued using confidential informants,
our covert operations, whatever we could do
to try to get him off the streets.
♪
The family eventually comes
an hour or so later to 12 Division.
As in any homicide,
it's always obviously devastating and traumatic.
There's always a little bit of denial. There's shock.
They were at a loss as to why Jermaine would be targeted.
He worked at a restaurant, he had a son,
but there was nothing that would indicate that he would
be the target of a homicide or a shooting.
[Patterson] Knowing in my head at that time that Shamoi Palmer
was wanted for this murder, I could not reveal that to them
at the time for the integrity of the investigation.
As much as I would love to have looked Mom in the eyes and say,
"We're gonna catch this person,"
I couldn't at that point.
♪
[McDonald] As the manhunt continued,
the address they were most interested in
was the one where Egypt Morgan lived.
[Patterson] I was able to convince our surveillance team
to sit on this address while we started working on
a search warrant to search the apartment,
which is where we believed that he would logically be staying.
Whether he's there or not, we didn't know.
♪
We wrapped up our day around midnight
and got, I think, three or four hours of sleep,
and then we resumed the following day
back at 12 Division.
♪
Detective Sergeant Patterson.
[McDonald] Still trying to find Palmer,
the day begins with a trip to the courthouse
to obtain a Canada-wide arrest warrant for him.
Updates were also coming in from surveillance teams
who had been working around the clock.
[Patterson] I am struggling to find resources again.
What I have now is
five addresses where Shamoi could be.
I could not determine with any certainty where Shamoi was,
so I had to have them all covered.
By four o'clock that afternoon,
I was able to have four of the five addresses covered.
But, of course, the one at 55 Emmett,
I was still struggling,
and the team that was sitting there was exhausted.
[McDonald] Believing Palmer was still in the city,
they began thinking of ways to flush him out.
From experience, we know that most people that commit crimes,
they watch the news.
[McDonald] So they plan a live news conference.
Minutes before it starts, Mike secures a team
to cover Egypt Morgan's apartment.
But they need time to get there.
[Patterson] I had set up the press conference
for five o'clock.
So, I'm walking the media through the investigation.
I'm making a plea for more witnesses, dash cams,
anything that the community is willing to come forward with,
but I'm purposely going slow.
We're appealing to the public to assist
in tracing the final 24 hours of Mr. Titus' life.
Because I am waiting anxiously for that
fifth surveillance team to get put in place.
And I have my phone on the podium
and I see the message come.
At about 20 after 5, I picked up the foam board
of Shamoi Palmer's face and I put it on that easel.
And I said something along the lines of,
"We have identified an individual responsible."
He is now wanted for first degree murder.
And this is a reminder
to those that may be harbouring Mr. Palmer.
That you will also be investigated
and you will be charged for accessory
after the fact to murder.
Following the press conference,
they reach out to surveillance teams,
instructing them to start knocking on doors
looking for Palmer.
[Patterson] We also had tasked our surveillance unit,
who was sitting at the address on Emmett Avenue,
to go and do the door knock and to arrest him on site
if he was there.
So those were instructions.
I guess the tactic of the news conference had worked.
Because at 5:43, so just a few minutes later,
I get a very excited phone call from a detective
at 12 Division who has Shamoi Palmer under arrest.
They never got a chance to get to the door.
They observed Mr. Palmer exiting the lobby doors,
getting into an Uber.
He gets jammed up in Toronto traffic.
The surveillance team
is desperately trying to get to him.
They end up boxing the vehicle in
and arresting Shamoi Palmer in the back of the Uber.
[Henkel] He had the satchel,
some of the clothing he had been seen with
earlier in the day and a couple of cell phones,
but no weapon at that time.
He was transported to 12 Division.
I had instructed the surveillance resources
at the Emmett address to secure the apartment
pending a search warrant.
[Patterson] I made sure to call Jermaine Titus' mother
a few minutes before I did the media stand-up...
Mr. Titus leaves behind his loving family
and a four-year-old son.
...to let her know that
I was going to be presenting an update.
The pleasure of calling her afterwards
and telling her that he was under arrest
was something that you can't describe
as an investigator.
[Henkel] He wasn't interested in speaking with us.
He said he had bigger concerns to deal with.
I would disagree when you're being charged
with first-degree murder
and your life is hanging in the wind,
but he didn't seem phased.
He said we'll be speaking with each other
for a number of years and wanted to go back to his cell.
[McDonald] The following day,
they search Egypt Morgan's apartment.
[Patterson] He had quite a large living space
and a red leather sectional couch
and a massive TV on the wall.
I can remember thinking,
"I wonder if my theory is correct."
Is it the media that flushed out Shamoi Palmer?
So, I picked up the remote and turned on the TV
and sure enough, what was last seen was local media.
Moments into the search,
there was a particular officer
that was looking at the cushions,
pulling the cushions up and then he got down
on his hands and knees and he looked under the couch
and he turns to me and goes, "Sir, I think we got a gun."
[Henkel] It was a .45 calibre Parrot 1911
with a flashlight and a laser sight mounted to it.
[Patterson I mean, there's no good reason to own this.
It's illegal to own it in the first place,
but my hopes were that this was the murder weapon.
[Henkel] Following the search warrant,
Egypt Morgan was taken into custody
on August 28th and a number of firearm charges were laid.
Then our investigation continues.
We start working on getting the cell phones extracted
and within a week, we're on to our next homicide.
[McDonald] As the work of building the case
against Shamoi Palmer begins, the big question remains
[Henkel] We did ask him if he knew who Jermaine Titus was.
He said he didn't know who that person was.
So we know who we believe did it,
but we don't know the motive for it and why.
That doesn't come into play till about August of 2019.
[McDonald] After Palmer's arrest, police submitted
several items for forensic testing
to prove he was the shooter
and hopefully shed light on a motive.
[Henkel] We've put requests in for gunshot residue
on the clothing that Mr. Palmer was arrested in.
We've requested DNA swabs to be examined
from the suspect vehicle and the firearms as well.
[McDonald] There were also the phones.
When Palmer was arrested, they had seized two.
Hey guys, Palmer's phone extraction's back.
The day of the murder, the morning of.
So, in June 2019, the first thing I did was
go to the phone log pre-murder
and there's a text exchange between Trap,
which we determined to be Palmer,
and Arby's, which was determined to be Egypt Morgan.
[Henkel] And it starts at 9:48 with, "Baby."
And he responds at the same time, "Yo."
She says, "Skeeno is in 711! Right now, behind me."
He responds, "Okay."
Minutes later, she adds,
he's waiting at the 35 going over the bridge.
She repeats that message at 9:54
because there's no response, I'm assuming.
She adds, blue sleeves.
There is a bit of a gap in time.
She repeats blue sleeves at 9:55.
And then finally, be careful.
[Henkel] So when you look at the last text message
at 9:57, "Be careful."
While the shooting has already taken place.
After reading that text exchange,
it dawned on me that Jermaine was never the intended target.
We know Jermaine was not at the 7-Eleven.
He wasn't in the area yet.
So this Skeeno is the person who was the intended target.
So we know Titus was in a car and he was never at 7-Eleven.
To people not familiar in the area,
it wouldn't mean very much.
Yeah, so that's the 7-Eleven at Jane and Weston.
It's right on the corner there.
And then 35 is the 35 bus.
But having worked in the area for years,
I know that's one of the bus routes.
So to me, that's waiting for the bus at Jane and Weston.
And knowing that now, we went back and looked at the video.
[Henkel] But from the scene itself,
we don't know who Skeeno is.
We don't see anyone with blue sleeves.
So that leads me to reach out to our covert operations.
And we are successful in identifying an individual
who uses that street name, has a history with the police,
drug convictions, possible gang affiliations.
We're leading up now to the preliminary hearing
and want to get him to court somehow.
So, we draft a subpoena up.
[McDonald] As they try to locate Skeeno,
phone records reveal even more
about Palmer's activities that day
and Egypt Morgan's involvement.
[Jitta] About 10:15 or 10:17,
he starts querying social media outlets,
like news outlets,
in order to find out what's going on.
[McDonald] At one point, Morgan sends a text
joking about a mistake in a news report, saying...
[Jitta] It dawns on him, he no longer wanted to text.
He says, if anything, WhatsApp.
On that WhatsApp exchange, he tells her,
"I returned the rental."
And she responds, "Good. Hot."
And then she makes arrangements
for him to get picked up from where he was
in order to bring him back to her apartment.
A lot of the communication was with other identified people.
He's looking for someone to rent a car for him.
So, he's looking for an exit plan.
[McDonald] Things go quiet for a while.
Until the next day,
around the time of the police press conference.
[Jitta] At 5:06, Palmer misses a voice call.
But then, a text exchange happens.
And Morgan says, "Baby tell me what I need to do please."
My heart. Right now.
My sister's crib is always free for me."
He responds, "Okay."
She said, "We can go, the door is open."
He asks where. She provides him an address.
Then she orders an Uber,
tells him, go down the flight of stairs.
And that's when the Uber comes.
So, in the extract where he is taking an Uber
to her sister's place,
Palmer says, "We need to talk, baby."
And she says, "Okay."
And he says, "Imma turn in." And she says, "Nah bro."
I can't do two Ubers at once.
And he says, "I'm not talking about Uber.
Going in."
And she says, "Stop talking dumb [bleep]."
So, this is moments before he's arrested.
And then he says, got pulled over. Just now. On God.
And that's the last thing Palmer says.
And she replies within seconds, "Nah. Where, tell him cut."
Indicating, like, tell the Uber
to try to evade the police that are pulling him over.
[McDonald] Since the murder,
Egypt Morgan had been on house arrest
on the original firearms charges.
These texts tell them she was more involved
in Jermaine's death than they had thought.
[Jitta] So post-murder, Palmer tells Morgan,
"I returned the rental."
And she responded, "Good. Hot."
So, she knew that was not good
to be wheeling that around any further.
And then after that, she sent an Uber to go pick him up.
So that elevates Morgan's role in this.
[McDonald] Forensic tests were ongoing.
A mixed DNA profile had been found in the car
and on the gun and ammunition.
DNA warrants were issued for both Palmer and Morgan.
As investigators waited for the results,
another piece of evidence emerged.
Hey Robin, come and see this.
Look at this.
[girl squealing]
One morning in August,
I took the entire day to go through the cell phone extract.
That's got to be the gun.
Approximately 40,000 images
and a couple thousand video files.
And on one of the files, I found a Snapchat.
And it shows Shamoi Palmer standing in a hotel room
holding a pistol at his side.
And then he raises the pistol at the person
holding the camera filming the video.
And he actually lights up.
There's a spotlight and a laser sight that's on it.
And there's a female heard in the background laughing.
We now had a video of Palmer holding the murder weapon.
[McDonald] It was not the only thing tying him to the gun.
Gunshot residue was found on his clothing.
A very small amount.
But the ballistics report
and his DNA results erased any doubt
that he was the shooter.
[Stewart] The gun itself came back as conclusive
that it was the same gun.
The shell casings matched forensically
back to the shell casing found on the windshield
and the shell casings found at the scene.
Palmer's DNA came back and there was a match
to the steering wheel, the gun and the ammunition.
[McDonald] As they waited on Morgan's DNA results,
investigators met with Crown attorneys to go over
what they did have.
After reviewing all the extraction reports
and the cell phone information,
she was rearrested because of her telling Palmer
about the whereabouts of Skeeno and providing him assistance
with trying to get away the day that he was arrested.
[McDonald] On September 16th, 2019,
Egypt Morgan was taken into custody
and charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence,
accessory after the fact to murder
and failure to comply
with the conditions of house arrest.
[Jitta] The very next day on the 17th
is when we get the DNA report back with her DNA
on the firearm, the magazine and the ammunition.
We then consulted with Crown attorneys
and after discussion with them,
we decided to upgrade the charges to first degree murder.
[McDonald] Even though they knew
Skeeno was the intended target,
they still didn't understand
why Jermaine was the one Palmer shot at.
[Henkel] We are now coming close
to the preliminary hearing
which is scheduled for October of 2019
and while we were prepping one of the witnesses
who was at the scene,
we actually put the CCTV footage of the shooting
and where this witness was up on a 60-inch screen TV.
To me, the Crown and I look at each other
because in high definition on the screen,
we see an individual running between two houses
with blue sleeves.
Welcome back.
At the time Jermaine Titus was shot,
police believed he'd been targeted, but didn't know why.
Ten months later, investigators learned
the real target was a man known as Skeeno.
What they couldn't do was place him at the scene
until just as the case is about to head to court.
Here now is Catherine McDonald
with the conclusion of "Four Little Words."
[Henkel] We were reviewing this video with a witness
and as we're playing it, you see the bus making a turn,
you see our suspect right now making a right turn
onto Weston Road
and that person in the centre image
takes notice of the person in the SUV
and will start walking towards us and as he's doing that,
you start seeing the distinctive blue sleeves here
and the Crown and I looked at each other going,
"Oh my God, this is Skeeno."
He's been there the whole time
and he is actually the same person
that ducks in between the two homes,
which we thought initially,
it was somebody running for cover when the shots rang out.
You can see that as Shamoi Palmer's driving the SUV
back the other way and the shots ring out,
they're aligned with where Skeeno is
and poor Jermaine Titus happened to just be driving by
at the same time and was accidentally struck.
Skeeno did turn up to the court the very first day
for the preliminary hearing
and he did not want to participate
with the proceedings.
I ask him if he knows Jermaine Titus,
he doesn't know who Jermaine Titus is.
When I ask him if he knows Shamoi Palmer,
he denies knowing who this person is.
Then I show him the surveillance photos,
he confirms that's him.
He said he had just dropped off his kid at school
and was just taking the bus because he doesn't drive
and that's why he was at the bus stop.
He confirmed he was in the 7-Eleven prior to.
He's confirming little bits and pieces,
but denying any knowledge of Mr. Palmer.
I asked him if he was the target of that shooting.
Initially he denied it, then I asked him
why he was going in between the homes.
He says he has friends in the area.
So, we were playing a cat and mouse game.
So, the good things that came out of it
is he confirmed his identity,
identified who he was on the photos.
So, now we have who we believe was the intended victim
and we're able to confirm
that Mr. Titus was just an unfortunate victim
of a random act of violence.
[McDonald] The trial for Shamoi Palmer and Egypt Morgan
began in September 2022.
In her opening address,
the Crown Prosecutor told the jury
that Shamoi Palmer was the gunman
and that his girlfriend, Egypt Morgan,
sent him a text message just before the shooting
putting the plan in motion.
Egypt Morgan, at the time of the murder, was 18 years old.
Just living life, going to work every day,
really just a regular girl.
[Patterson] No connections with police,
no indications that she would have any affiliations
to any criminality.
[Stewart] At the trial, the Crowns were able to establish
that Egypt Morgan knew that Palmer was looking for Skeeno,
that Palmer had access to his gun,
and that some harm would befall Skeeno.
[Jitta] Once the Crown rested their case,
the defence lawyer for Egypt Morgan
decided to put his client on the stand.
Egypt Morgan testified
that she and Palmer never had the intent together
to cause bodily harm or cause death to anyone.
Morgan admitted Palmer had asked her to let him know
if she ever saw Skeeno, though she didn't know why.
She said later that day, Palmer told her
he wanted to switch things up to find a cheaper rental car.
She told the jury she was unaware
Shamoi Palmer had discharged a firearm.
She only realized what had happened the following day
when she saw Palmer's face on TV
while she was out getting her hair done.
She was downplaying their relationship
and how much he had meant to her,
that she had put the whole thing past her
and didn't really care too much for him any longer.
So in November 2022, the trial was still going on.
They were working on closing arguments
and received an email
to contact somebody from Corrections.
What came to light that
Egypt Morgan was sending Shamoi Palmer letters in jail
in spite of their court order not to communicate.
Some of the writings were about her own testimony.
[McDonald] Cell searches were done
and almost a dozen letters were seized,
but they were not immediately introduced at courts.
We can't determine 100% that it's from Morgan.
Further investigation needed to be done,
so everyone was fine
to let that investigation happen naturally
and they would continue on with the closings,
the verdict, address that as a side issue.
[McDonald] On December 1st,
the jury found Shamoi Palmer guilty of first-degree murder.
[Jitta] That's an automatic 25-year sentence
with no eligibility for parole until after 25.
Jermaine Titus' family was present
every single day for that trial.
It's a long journey.
It's bittersweet.
He went out that day with the intentions
of killing someone
and the life he took was the life of my son.
Innocent.
You know, you just feel very vulnerable
and very nervous and very apprehensive about
where you are, who's around you.
I also find that when I drive,
I'm constantly looking and observing my surroundings,
listening deeply for any, you know,
loud, impactful bangs,
maybe reflective of possibly a gunshot.
[McDonald] Despite facing the same charge,
Egypt Morgan was found guilty of manslaughter.
[Jitta] I believe it was tough for a jury
to convict an 18-year-old young woman at the time
for sending texts to the person
who ultimately shot and killed the person.
She was culpable, but to send Morgan to prison
for the rest of her life
from a text would be a little difficult to do.
[McDonald] Though Palmer's sentence was automatic,
it would be almost another year
before Morgan received hers.
It took a while because there was submissions made
about what was contained in those letters.
[Stewart] The letters were basically her talking about
how she would account for certain issues
and certain questions that she was going to face
when she took the stand.
And then there were lots of other letters
expressing her plans to continue the relationship
with Palmer after they hopefully,
in her mind, got past this trial.
[Jitta] The sentencing didn't come back until October of 2023
and Morgan received a sentence of ten years
for manslaughter.
And I believe that those letters
led to that ten-year sentence.
Yes, she sent texts.
If it was not for those texts,
the sequence of events would not have happened.
That's one thing.
Don't be on the stand.
Swear and lie.
I don't know that she understood
the seriousness of what she was doing.
She was a young person.
I think she was just in love with Shamoi.
And I think that misguided her loyalties.
She received the penalty she deserved.
She started a series of events
that caused the death of an innocent person.
[McDonald] Four little words was all it took.
[Patterson] Jermaine Titus was an upstanding citizen,
an individual who worked, took care of his child,
had a loving family.
There was nothing to indicate
that he was anything more than an upstanding citizen
and contributor to society.
And that just added to the tragedy that much more.
He's a good person.
One that will be very much missed by his family.
[Robart] We spoke to the Titus family,
but they did not wish to participate in this episode.
Still serving his life sentence,
Shamoi Palmer won't be eligible for parole until 2043.
As for Egypt Morgan, her firearms charges were stayed.
When she was sentenced for manslaughter,
she had already served over four years.
After receiving additional credits,
she will be released in August 2027.
Thank you for joining us tonight on Crime Beat.
I'm Antony Robart.
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