Suspect sought news online about Jannai Dopwell-Bailey slaying, court told

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The man charged with murdering 16-year-old Jannai Dopwell-Bailey outside the boy’s school appeared to seek news of the slaying on an iPhone several times before he was arrested.

The trial of Andrei Donet, 21, began its fourth week at the Montreal courthouse with the jury hearing translations, from English to French, of internet searches the accused is alleged to have made in the days after the teen was stabbed outside his school in Côte-des-Neiges on Oct. 18, 2001. Donet is alleged to have killed Jannai with help from an accomplice, a minor whose name cannot be published. The victim was pepper-sprayed, assaulted and stabbed several times in the heart.

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According to the Crown’s theory of the case, Jannai was killed within the context of a rivalry between “two groups,” street gangs based in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and Côte-des-Neiges. Earlier in the trial, the jury was shown evidence that Donet is affiliated with the 51s or the DGs, a group associated with Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Jannai was associated with the 160s, a group based in Côte-des-Neiges.

In April, when prosecutor Katrine Brabant made her opening statement in the trial, she asked the jury to take note of how the letters DG are tattooed on Donet’s right forearm. She also asked the jury to note how the same tattoo is visible in videos that Donet is alleged to have posted on social media before and after Jannai was killed.

In one of the videos, posted on Instagram just an hour after Jannai was killed, two young males are seen wearing ski masks and jumping to a rap song while one holds a knife and makes stabbing motions toward the camera while saying: “Yo, something wrong with this boy.”

The phrase was translated in French for the jury on Monday as well as a series of documents that listed headlines from several online media outlets that reported on the homicide in the days following Jannai’s death.

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One headline from a report published by The Gazette read: “He shouldn’t be dead”: Suspect arrested in stabbing of teen. The report was about how the minor had been arrested weeks before Donet was. Another report viewed from The Gazette’s website had the headline: “Teen dies after being stabbed in Côte-des-Neiges.”

On Oct. 24, 2021, the phone was used to visit another news site to read a report with the headline: Vigil honours life of 16-year-old stabbing victim in Montreal.

One of the Google search terms used on the same iPhone was “cote des neige (sic) stabbing.” Another search contained the words “montreal (sic) stabbing 16 year old.” The iPhone was also used to do a search using the phrase: “Different types of 160 members.”

Three days after the stabbing, Donet appeared to be ready to leave the province. He allegedly did a search using the words “travel lodge”  and the iPhone was used to search the questions: “Does Ottawa have pay phones” and “can police track me on ig,” an apparent reference to Instagram.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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