Lawyers delivered starkly different accounts of the fatal shooting of Tony Bechara during closing arguments Thursday, with the defence portraying Glen Mayer as a devastated, intoxicated man acting in self-defence, while prosecutors argued he executed a plan to kill Bechara.
Mayer, 49, of LaSalle has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the Jan. 20, 2024 shooting of Bechara, 47, at Bechara’s Lakeshore home. Closing arguments were presented to the jury Thursday in a trial that began June 9 before Superior Court Justice J. Ross Macfarlane.
Defence Claims Self-Defence After Knife Attack
The defence says Mayer shot Bechara after he was attacked with a knife during a confrontation over an affair with Mayer’s wife. The Crown argues Mayer armed himself, drove to Bechara’s home, shot him and fabricated the self-defence claim.
Evidence has been presented at trial that Mayer had been drinking alcohol throughout the previous night and into the morning. Upon discovery of text messages on his wife’s cellphone that showed evidence of an affair with Bechara, Mayer retrieved his Glock 22 handgun from his gun safe and attached an ammunition magazine.
Sequence of Events on the Morning of the Killing
At about 5:30 a.m., he embarked on a 90-minute meandering drive in his Ford F-150 truck before arriving in Belle River and confronting Bechara, who was then shot five times. Mayer turned himself into police later that morning, accompanied by his father.
Mayer, who testified in his own defence Tuesday, said after an argument about the affair Bechara came at him with a knife, so he shot Bechara in self-defence, and that he originally retrieved the gun to commit suicide.
Defence Lawyer Emphasizes Emotional Distress
“This case . . . is far from simple,” Greenspan told the jury. “It includes betrayal, sadness loss, family, love . . . hopelessness.” She said the Crown had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Mayer never intended to kill Bechara, or even to go to his Belle River home when he left his residence in LaSalle about 5:30 a.m. Jan. 20, 2024, she said. A text message sent to his sister-in-law, who Mayer said he was close with, said: “I’m sorry. I love you guys. I have to move on.” That could only mean Mayer planned on killing himself, she said.
She stressed Mayer’s testimony that he had suicidal thoughts throughout the previous months when he suspected his wife’s affair. She described Mayer as a hard worker and a family man who was loyal to his friends but that he was exhausted from lack of sleep and intoxicated beyond recognition the morning of the killing after concluding the life he had worked to build was falling apart in the wake of the affair.
“Mr. Mayer was in a clear state of emotional stress and despair and intoxication and exhaustion,” Greenspan said. “He realized he had lost his wife.” He went to Bechara’s home to confront him and make him understand he was feeling destroyed by the ultimate betrayal by both his wife and his friend, she said.
