Barrie Police continued their canvass of an east-end neighbourhood Tuesday, where a 16-year-old Hamilton boy was stabbed to death on the weekend.
And while officers continue to speak to possible witnesses to Saturday morning’s slaying of Joey Tanner, outside a Strabane Street housing development, they are proceeding as if this crime is not gang-related.
They also indicate it is too early in the investigation to establish motive, but are steering away from the gang theory.
Officers were to remain on Strabane for another couple of days, in relation to the investigation.
Tanner and an 18-year-old Alliston man were involved in an altercation with two men outside the building shortly before noon Saturday. He died of his wounds a few hours later. The Alliston man is in Royal Victoria Hospital, expected to make a full recovery.
Tanner is Barrie’s first murder victim of 2007.
Police got separate 911 calls; one, shortly after the stabbing around 11:15 a.m. Saturday; another, when customers of a Duckworth Plaza convenience store noticed two victims being removed from a white vehicle, and left to bleed on the street.
Barrie Police officers spent much of Saturday in search of a 1999 white, four-door Lexus sedan, apparently stolen from a location in Dufferin County.
Police were also tipped off to a man in his 20s, about 5’10” of chubby build, with short, light, curly hair, numerous tattoos on his arms, in a white cutoff T-shirt, bearing street names such as “Ice” and “Humidity”.
Tanner, with his parents by his side, succumbed to his injuries around 4 p.m. at RVH.
It was shortly before 10 p.m. Saturday, in the middle of Toronto Street, near Dunlop Street, that tactical support officers closed in on two men with ties to the stabbings.
Joseph Daniel Nicholson, 20, of Barrie, and Matthew John Massey, 19, of no fixed address, face charges of second-degree murder and attempted murder. They will appear in Barrie Court this Friday.
Police also questioned two teens in relation to the offence. They were soon released without being charged.
Barrie Police are still calling on anyone at the plaza on Saturday from 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to come forward with anything they knew or saw, or to call them at 725-7025 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).
