Teen girl shows no emotion while pleading guilty to manslaughter

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She punched him. She kicked him. She spat and screamed at him even as the homeless man lay battered and helpless on the ground.

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She held on to Kenneth Lee with her left hand and continued to pound the poor man with her right.

Such heartless violence from a girl who was just 13.

Yet she revealed not a glimmer of emotion as she listened to the most horrific and brutal facts read into court about her role in what the police have called the “swarming” death of the 59-year-old and then assured Justice David Rose in a quiet voice that in her plea to manslaughter she understood she was giving up her right to a trial and that she was confirming all of the admitted details were correct.

According to the agreed statement read by Crown attorney Mary Humphrey, she participated in the beating, but while she had a knife earlier that fateful evening she had no weapon during the attack and didn’t stab Lee.

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She’s one of eight girls, ranging in age from 13 to 16, who was originally charged with second-degree murder in the Dec. 18, 2022, killing. Now 15 and the only one still in custody, she’s the first to plead guilty.

Four of her co-accused have also indicated they’ll plead guilty in the coming weeks, while three others have opted to fight the allegations in Superior Court before a judge and jury with a trial date expected to be set next week. She told the judge she understands she will be called as a witness.

At least she is taking responsibility for her part.

As her mother wiped away tears in the downtown courtroom filled with media, the girl didn’t flinch as Humphrey detailed the disturbing autopsy report — how Lee died of a penetrating stab wound to the heart, his body a ghastly map of cuts and bruises on his face, head, arms, legs and torso — and the 19 different injuries in all from blunt-force trauma.

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High on drugs or booze or both, she can’t remember what happened — though she admits surveillance videos capture her repugnant role in the deadly attack.

It all began three hours earlier. It was after 9 p.m. on Dec. 17, 2022, that she said she joined friends at Yorkdale Station, where she’s seen on video walking and running around the platform holding a knife.

On the southbound subway train to St. George Station, she admits to lunging and yelling at two males and following them as they exited, still screaming at them. She and her friends caused such a commotion that they were eventually kicked out of the station — only to re-enter a short time later and catch the subway to St. Andrew.

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At the downtown station, she admitted, she tried to assault two women, but was restrained by some of her friends — though she doesn’t recall that part of the night or how they then got to Union Station at about 11:30 p.m. Just before midnight, they ended up in the parkette near the Strathcona Hotel on York St.

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The Strathcona operated as a shelter — Lee had stayed there in the past and his friend Erica was a resident at the time. Lee left Erica in the parkette to go back to the hotel for a few minutes and the girl admits hassling her and stealing her alcohol while he was gone.

When Lee returned, Humphrey said, he was swarmed in a relentless attack that lasted three minutes and 20 seconds with three separate waves of assault.

At the time, his family said he died a hero while protecting his friend.

According to the agreed statement of facts, the swarming only ended after an employee leaving work at the Strathcona Hotel heard loud screaming and rushed to intervene.

By then, Lee had been stabbed, the knife puncturing his lung and left ventricle. When paramedics first arrived, the Crown said, he was able to walk on his own, but then collapsed and was pronounced dead at 1:40 a.m. at St. Michael’s Hospital.

A short time after the attack, the girl was seen vomiting outside Union Station and then videotaped herself “dancing happily on the sidewalk” near 181 Bay St.

A few hours later, she and seven other girls were arrested for second-degree murder in the lobby of Sick Kids, where a male friend was being treated for an accidental stab wound.

She returns to court next month for sentencing submissions and a charter challenge.

mmandel@postmedia.com

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