Already serving life, Donald Musselman sentenced to eight years for ‘callous’ jailhouse killing

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Already serving a life sentence for the murder of Ottawa musician Markland Campbell, Donald Musselman pleaded guilty this week to killing an inmate at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre while he was in jail and awaiting his trial.

Musselman, 23, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Tuesday and told the court he was “deeply sorry to everyone involved” as he was sentenced to another eight years in prison for the “callous” beating death of Zakaria Sheek-Hussein.

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Musselman was previously found guilty of second-degree murder in Campbell’s killing in 2019, and in May was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 12 years.

Sheek-Hussein was 27 and in custody at OCDC when Musselman was awaiting his murder trial.

According to the summary of facts, Musselman beat and “stomped” Sheek-Hussein in the washroom of one of the jail’s “day rooms” in the afternoon of Feb. 24, 2021.

Crown prosecutors Cassandra Hebert and James Cavanagh played CCTV surveillance video of the incident for the court on Tuesday, showing seven inmates dressed in orange, jail-issued jumpsuits inside the day room.

Musselman and Sheek-Hussein are first seen talking on separate telephones as other prisoners pace around the room or watch TV.

At one point, according to the Crown, Musselman followed Sheek-Hussein into an adjoining washroom and the two men got into a “consensual” fight.

The altercation is not clearly seen on the video, which is obscured by the washroom’s frosted windows, and there is no audio.

Sheek-Hussein “said something” to Musselman, who responded with punches, according to Hebert, with the fight lasting about one minute.

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Tempers appeared to subside, according to the video, and the two men spent the next two hours in the day room.

Just after 1 p.m. that same day, Sheek-Hussein hung up the phone and went back into the washroom and closed the door behind him. Musselman was already in the washroom and the two engaged in another fight, Hebert said, while fellow inmates peeked in through the windows and turned up the volume on the television.

“Through the frosted window, Mr. Musselman can be seen stomping on something several times,” Hebert said in her summary. Musselman alone is seen exiting the washroom one minute later, and he can be seen “readjusting” his shoe, Hebert said. “There is no sign of Mr. Sheek-Hussein.”

Musselman went back to eating while fellow inmates went into the washroom to check on Sheek-Hussein.

Musselman is also seen in the video going into the washroom in an attempt to revive the “unresponsive” victim.

No one called for help, Hebert said, despite the “obvious” traumatic injuries to Sheek-Hussein’s face, neck and head, his eyes swollen and his mouth bloodied.

He was only discovered  by a guard 90 minutes later.

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Sheek-Hussein was rushed to hospital, where he remained in a medically-induced coma for five months before dying from his injuries.

Musselman was initially charged with aggravated assault, but that was upgraded to second-degree murder after Sheek-Hussein’s death on July 23, 2021.

He entered a guilty plea to manslaughter on Tuesday before Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips.

“This is a disturbing example of callous, extreme violence,” Phillips said.

“It’s one thing to win a fight, it is quite another to stomp on the head of a man who has no fight left in him.”

Sheek-Hussein’s family, including his father, sister and former girlfriend, filed victim-impact statements describing the “devastation” the family experienced following his death.

The judge thanked the family for “conveying clearly and forcefully the impact” of Sheek-Hussein’s “untimely and completely unnecessary death.”

Phillips accepted a joint position on sentencing from the Crown and Musselman’s defence lawyers, Leo Russomanno and Kim Hyslop, calling the eight-year term a “fit and just” sentence.

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Musselman’s defence lawyers said they believed both fights were consensual, but acknowledged, “It went way too far.”

Hyslop said Musselman was the youngest of the seven inmates in the day room that afternoon, and he “did not appreciate the seriousness of the injuries” to Sheek-Hussein.

Musselman experienced institutional racism, his lawyers said, after he moved to Mississauga, then to Ottawa from his home in Macon, Ga., when he was 11.

He was also a victim of crime, Hyslop said, as he was shot in Vanier “in broad daylight” in January 2019, with bullets striking his face and arm, in what police described as a “targeted” shooting by three assailants who opened fire inside the Burger King restaurant at 199 Montreal Rd.

He has been incarcerated “for nearly his entire adult life,” Hyslop said.

Musselman was 18 when he shot and killed Campbell in the ByWard Market on June 7, 2019.

Campbell had rushed to the Market from his job that night after his daughter told him she had been harassed by two teenagers. He was shot twice during a confrontation with a group of teenagers on the crowded streets packed with revellers enjoying a Toronto Raptors playoff game.

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Musselman consistently denied killing Campbell throughout his trial and claimed another teenager, who was a youth at the time, fired the fatal shots.

The jury rejected that defence and Musselman was found guilty of second-degree murder in December.

ahelmer@postmedia.com

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