New trials ordered in 2014 killing of Niagara Falls man

Panel rules the presiding judge made several errors to the jury

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has ordered new trials for two men convicted in the 2014 killing of a 49-year-old Niagara Falls man.

Bradley MacGarvie, 31, was convicted in 2017 of first-degree murder in the death of Alexander Fraser.

He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

Thomas Nagy, 33, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 12 years.

Fraser, a father of three, was abducted from Gonder’s Flats in Fort Erie on Boxing Day 2014 and driven to a rural Niagara Falls location where he was killed.

In a decision released Monday, Ontario’s highest court ruled the presiding judge made several errors in the legal proceeding and set aside the convictions and ordered new trials for both men.

The errors included improper instructions to the jury relating to the defendants’ conduct after the killing.

“Here, one cannot be left with any confidence that the jury understood the purposes for which the after-the-fact conduct evidence could be used,” Justice Gladys Pardu wrote in the three-member panel’s decision.

“Absent such understanding, the risk of prejudicial use of the evidence was elevated.”

The Appeal Court said failure to give the jury guidance on the issue is “sufficiently serious” as to require new trials.

At trial, the jury heard Fraser had been assaulted by MacGarvie and others at a Niagara Falls home about six weeks before he was killed.

MacGarvie later learned Fraser had enlisted the help of friends to come to Niagara to exact revenge for the beating.

On Boxing Day, Fraser was lured to a secluded spot along Niagara Parkway in Fort Erie and confronted by MacGarvie and others.

The victim was forced into the back seat of a pickup truck and driven back to Niagara Falls.

MacGarvie testified Fraser confirmed to him he had organized an attack, and told him he hoped the people he had recruited would kill him and his family. MacGarvie maintained he had not intended to kill the man, but that he did so unintentionally when he exploded in response to those words.

The Court of Appeal also ruled the judge erred in part during his instructions to the jury on potential “modes of liability” concerning Nagy, who did not testify at trial.

Fraser’s body was found floating near the Sir Adam Beck Generating Station channel in March 2015. His head was bound with duct tape and his wrists and ankles were secured with double sets of zip ties.

A pathologist could not determine the precise cause of death and testified it was unclear whether Fraser died as a result of the beating or by drowning.