WINDSOR -- A Windsor man has pleaded guilty to manslaughter for beating his father to death.
David Sura, 40, pleaded not guilty to murder and guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in Windsor’s Superior Court on Thursday.
Thomas Sura was killed inside his home at 1497 Everts Ave. on June 20, 2018.
The coroner lists his cause of death as “multiple blunt force traumatic injuries” to his neck, chest and torso.
Crown attorney Jayme Lesperance detailed the case before Justice Bruce Thomas in Superior Court.
Thomas Sura “had a long time problem with alcohol,” Lesperance explained.
On June 19, David Sura went to visit his family whom he hadn’t seen “in years,” according to Lesperance.
Court heard the two men were drinking alcohol that evening and even went to a nearby LCBO to purchase more alcohol.
On the way to the LCBO, Thomas Sura was described as “frail” and “struggling” to walk to his car.
Surveillance cameras captured images of Thomas Sura vomiting near his pickup truck, and an employee told police it appeared like he had wet himself.
Lesperance says father and son went back to the Everts home and both consumed “significant quantities” of alcohol before the father went to sleep in his room, and David fell asleep on the couch.
David Sura awoke in the early morning hours, went into his fathers’ room to give him a bottle of water.
“We’ll never know” why David Sura started to attack his father, Lesperance tells CTV News.
Thomas Sura was punched, repeatedly, in the head and chest and suffered numerous kicks to his body with a steel-toed boot.
Court heard David Sura left his father’s house, but later called 911 from his home on Drouillard Road.
Lesperance read out a transcript of that phone call during the court proceedings.
“I think he’s dead” Sura told the dispatcher, saying he left his father “in a pool of his own blood.”
When asked by the dispatcher who was hurt, Sura replied, “It’s my father and I beat his ass really bad. I think he might be pretty close to dying. When I left he was gurgling blood.”
After that 25 minute phone call with the 911 dispatcher, Windsor police went to David’s Suras’ home on Drouillard Road and arrested him although officers reported he smelled like alcohol and was “unsteady” on his feet.
Police found the body of Thomas Sura, deceased in the bedroom of his home.
He had bruises over his body, dislodged teeth, brain injuries and broken ribs, and the toxicology report indicated he was heavily intoxicated at the time of his death.
When he arrived in court, Sura, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, had bruises on his face.
His defence lawyer, RaeAnn Kopat explained he got into an “altercation” sometime overnight in jail.
Sura has been in custody since his arrest in June 2018 and has never asked for bail.
Kopat then went through David Suras’ history, for Justice Bruce Thomas.
Sura suffered a “traumatic brain injury” and was in a coma for six months after he was involved in a serious motor vehicle accident in 2017.
His younger brother, Thomas Sura Junior told the court “he (David) wasn’t the same after that accident.”
Sura testified living in their household was “pretty much like hell. He (Thomas Sr.) was a very abusive alcoholic.”
“I became very good at hiding because if he found me or anyone else, we would get beaten.” Sura testified.
“Dave would step-in and take care of me.”
Court also heard, David and Thomas Jr’s other brother, committed suicide as did their mother in recent years.
“He (David) never really could get over all the things that happened,” the younger brother told the court.
David Sura will be back in court on March 13 for sentencing.
