TORONTO - An Ontario couple found guilty of first-degree murder in the brutal beating of the man's teenage daughter has lost a bid to have their convictions overturned.
Fedrick and Elizabeth Gayle had each appealed their June 2013 convictions in the killing of 15-year-old Tiffany Gayle, saying the judge overseeing their trial had made mistakes with respect to certain rulings and in her instructions to the jury.
Fedrick Gayle argued, among other things, that the jury should have been given limiting instructions on how to use testimony regarding his alleged belting of another daughter, and that a baseball bat allegedly used in the attack should not have been admitted as evidence.
Elizabeth Gayle, meanwhile, said in her appeal that the jury should not have been allowed to consider her behaviour after Tiffany's death to determine her level of involvement in the crime.
A three-member panel with the Court of Appeal for Ontario rejected the couple's arguments, finding the trial judge did not err in making those decisions.
Tiffany was 14 when she and two siblings came from Jamaica to live with their father and stepmother in Brampton, Ont. Just over a year later, she was found dead in the bathtub of their home.
