Boy admits role in hammer killing of Toronto homeless man. Court sees video of 12-year-old’s ‘spree of violence’ - Toronto Star

'It was a planned spree of violence against vulnerable members of the community.'

A still from surveillance footage shows the end of the attack on Joseph Eric Aubin, 62. A 12-year-old boy, in gray pants, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Isaiah Byers, 20, is accused of swinging the hammer and is awaiting trial. 

In the early morning hours, a 12-year-old boy and a man set out on what would later be described as a “planned spree of violence” in the streets of downtown Toronto. 

Five victims — all men, most of them over 60 — were attacked in the span of 40 minutes on Aug. 31, 2025. One man was pushed off a bench and assaulted; another was shoulder-checked into the wall of a hotel lobby. A 70-year-old homeless man was struck with a hammer as the pair tried to rob him, leaving him bleeding with a broken arm on the sidewalk. 

Just after 6 a.m., the boy and the adult set their sights on 62-year-old Joseph Eric Aubin, a homeless man sleeping under a blanket on a bench in Nathan Phillips Square, between City Hall and the Superior Court of Justice. 

In chilling surveillance video played in court Tuesday, the boy points Aubin out to his accomplice. They rip off his blanket and chase him; the boy throws Aubin to the ground as the adult attacker repeatedly hits him with the hammer. Aubin tries to get away, but the boy again throws him to the ground, while the man continues with the hammer strikes. Aubin died several days later. 

The boy, now 14, cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, aggravated assault and assault in June. On Tuesday, the Crown requested that the judge impose an intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision order, which provides treatment for young people with mental health issues who have been found guilty of serious violent crimes. The order would include two years in secure custody — the boy has been detained since his arrest last year — and one year of supervision in the community. 

Defence lawyer Kristian Ferreira agreed with the order, but argued that the boy should get credit for the more than one year he has spent in pre-sentence custody. 

Isaiah Byers, 20 at the time of the attacks, still faces a trial in Superior Court for second-degree murder; the relationship between him and the boy was not indicated in court.

The boy gave two different explanations for the crimes: during a court-ordered psychiatric assessment, he said the plan was to rob people and that the pair became aggressive when their victims didn’t have any money. He said he didn’t know any of the victims were homeless. But to his therapist at the youth facility, he said the plan was to target homeless people.

“Either way, there was a plan for violence,” said Crown attorney Hannah Duhme, prosecuting with co-counsel Simon Heeney. 

“It was a planned spree of violence against vulnerable members of the community.”

According to an agreed statement of facts, the attacks began shortly after 5:45 a.m. The boy and the older attacker — Byers is named in the boy’s statement of facts, but is presumed innocent in his own case — approached an unidentified man sitting on a bench at the intersection of Yonge Street and Dundas Street; the adult pushed him to the ground while the boy assaulted him, including attempting to kick him. The man managed to flee. 

Seven minutes later, they moved west along Dundas and approached the 70-year-old homeless man standing on the sidewalk. The older attacker struck the man multiple times with a hammer while the boy hit him with an unknown object. Bleeding profusely from his head, the man was taken to hospital and was treated for a scalp laceration and a broken arm and nose. 

They then moved on to Aubin in Nathan Phillips Square. The statement of facts notes that after the boy threw Aubin to the ground for the final time, the adult attacker stomped on his face while the boy rifled through his pockets. They left Aubin bleeding on the ground, with his pants down and genitals exposed. City Hall security officers found Aubin and called 911; he initially did not want to report the incident to police.

Aubin suffered “extensive injuries” to the bones in his face, ribs, skull and spine. He was discharged from hospital the following day; two days later, on Sept. 3, Aubin can be seen for the last time on CCTV walking toward the bushes behind the Superior Court, in the area where he was attacked. He was discovered dead the next morning, with the cause of death listed as “complications of blunt impact trauma.”

Following the attack on Aubin, the statement of facts details how the pair assaulted two more people: the adult hit a 63-year-old man with the hammer in the area of Bay Street and Elm Street while the boy hit him in the head, and then in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel, they took a 63-year-old man’s phone.

The boy “actively participated in these five separate attacks,” the statement says. 

After the pair split up, the boy alone assaulted a 42-year-old man in the Yonge Street and College Street area by throwing an unknown object at him when the man refused to give him his phone. The boy was arrested shortly after. 

Around 5:45 a.m., the 12-year-old boy, in gray pants, and 20-year-old man push a man off a bench at Yonge Street and Dundas Street and assault him on the ground. 

The pair attack a 70-year-old homeless man at 5:52 a.m. on the sidewalk on Dundas Street just west of Yonge Street, leaving him bleeding with a broken nose and arm. 

The pair take a 63-year-old man’s phone in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel at 6:25 a.m. and the adult accused shoulder-checks him into a wall. 

A sequence of stills from surveillance footage shows the beginning of the attack on Joseph Eric Aubin, 62. Aubin was sleeping in Nathan Phillips Square when he was woken up by the boy, 12, in gray pants.

Very few children have been found guilty in homicides committed at the age of 12, the minimum age at which a person can be charged with a crime in Canada.

Two years ago, a boy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for stabbing his cousin in a Scarborough apartment when they were both 12 years old. 

The boy in this case “presents a significant risk for violent reoffending” unless his complex mental health needs are addressed, Duhme told Ontario Court Justice Rachel Grinberg. Dressed in a red-checkered shirt and black pants, the boy watched the proceedings from the prisoner’s box, with his mother seated in the gallery nearby. 

Court heard that the boy meets the criteria for a range of diagnoses, including ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, PTSD, and several substance-use disorders. Concerns about his aggression go back more than two years, Duhme said, and efforts to treat him in the community were unsuccessful. He was removed from group homes due to his behaviour. 

Despite his mother’s best efforts, “she hasn’t been able to manage his complex needs and behavioural issues at home,” Duhme said. “She believes that he would benefit from extensive therapeutic intervention.” 

The boy was the subject of daily incident reports when he was first detained last year, but the frequency of those reports “has decreased considerably” in light of the “exceptionally high” level of support he’s getting in the youth facility, Duhme said.

A 12-year-old child can never be sentenced as an adult.

Ferreira, the defence lawyer, argued that a sentence made shorter by crediting the boy for pre-sentence custody would motivate the boy to continue with the improvements he has already made. In his client’s “short-lived life,” he has had to endure domestic violence, racist taunting at school, and was the victim of a sexual assault by other youth. 

In an emotional statement to the court in which she expressed her condolences to the victims and their families, the boy’s mother said her son was a straight A and B student and heavily involved in sports before the sexual assault; afterward, he became a shell of his former self. She listed nearly a dozen hospitals and agencies she had contacted to help her son. 

“I kept calling, kept asking questions, kept applying, kept searching to find anyone who could help me bring my son back,” she told Grinberg. 

The Crown has pointed to records showing the boy’s behavioural issues predate the sexual assault. 

The mother said she reported her son missing more than 20 times; he was hospitalized, and placed on suicide watch. 

“I want the court to understand: behind every diagnosis, every hospital admission, every missing report and every medication, was a child who had dreams, talents, who loved sports,” she said through tears. 

“A child who loved his mother. A child who had a future.”

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Toronto police struggled for weeks to find Aubin’s next of kin, putting out a news release asking for assistance. Ultimately, some relatives were located; his sister, Stephanie Curtis, provided a victim impact statement through tears Tuesday via Zoom. 

“When I think of Eric, I do not think first of the suffering he endured,” she said. “I think of his kindness, his gentleness, the goodness in him. This is what I want people to remember about my brother.” 

She hadn’t seen her brother in more than 25 years, and learned of his death from the news. He had a difficult upbringing, marked by abuse and being in and out of foster care. But Curtis recalled a man who would help anyone in need, sharing a story about how her brother would always order extra food when out at a restaurant to give to someone living on the street. 

The boy, who kept his head bowed as the surveillance footage of the attack was played, looked straight at the video screen as Curtis spoke; his mother dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. 

“Eric did not deserve to die this way; they found somebody who was vulnerable, lost, and helpless,” Curtis said. “They took the life of a man who had already endured so much.” 

She said she could not begin to imagine what “circumstances or tragedies” may have shaped the lives of the two accused. 

“Whatever pain they carry, it is no excuse for what they did to Eric and the other victims,” Curtis said. 

Grinberg will deliver her sentencing decision next month.

Jacques Gallant is a Toronto-based reporter covering courts, justice and legal affairs for the Star. Reach him by email at jgallant@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @JacquesGallant