Two men plead guilty for their roles in 16-year-old’s killing

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Two men have pleaded guilty for their roles in the 2021 shooting death of a 16-year-old from Ottawa.

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“This was a senseless act of violence which took a 16-year-old’s life and severely injured another young person, robbed a mother of her son and a sister of her brother,” Superior Court Justice Anne London-Weinstein said Thursday. “These acts of gun violence are reaching an unacceptable level. We don’t want to be like Toronto in relation to gun and gang violence, and yet in these courts this is what we’re seeing.”

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Noel Perez, now 29, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and will serve a 15-year jail sentence for his participation in the killing of John Ndayishimiye, a rapper who also went by the name Jdub.

While Perez didn’t wield any weapons or come face to face with Ndayishimiye, he drove a blue Ford F-150 truck in the early morning hours of Dec. 6, 2021, to deliver the two teens accused of killing Ndayishimiye to the scene of the crime.

Hantel Hersi, now 26, was also in the vehicle, and he pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact for his role in helping Perez change the appearance of the truck to evade police.

According to an agreed statement of facts, Perez parked the truck about a five-minute walk away from 2200 Elmira Dr., where Ndayishimiye was living. The two shooters circled the home before entering the townhouse, bypassing the main floor and heading directly to a bedroom.

They kicked open the bedroom door and fired bullets into the bed, where Ndayishimiye and another 16-year-old boy were sleeping.

Ndayishimiye, who was sleeping closest to the door, was shot in the face, neck and torso. He died at the scene.

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The other teen was shot several times in the arm and back, but survived.

A total of nine bullets were retrieved from the scene.

The two accused of killing Ndayishimiye, who were teens at the time of the incident, will be standing trial for on first-degree murder charges. Those charges have not yet been proven in court.

The agreed statement of facts, read by Crown attorney Jason Neubauer on Nov. 28, said the two shooters entered the townhouse at 3:14 a.m. and left just moments later, fleeing back to the truck parked nearby. Perez then drove them back to an apartment where they had gathered earlier in the night.

Later, around 6 a.m., the foursome posted a video to Snapchat, lip syncing and dancing to music. The caption of the video read “Why the f*** do they keep trying to play with the reaper?” 

A few days after the homicide, the Ottawa Police Service distributed a video of the truck when it was in the area of Elmira Drive. Those videos showed the truck, owned by Perez’s father, with an after-market tonneau cover across its bed.

After the video was made public, Perez drove his father’s truck to an auto-detailing shop, followed by Hersi, who drove his own car.

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The auto-detailing shop removed the tonneau cover to alter the truck’s appearance and to make it less recognizable by police. The interior of the truck was also cleaned to remove traces of evidence.

Hersi drove Perez back to the auto-detailing shop to pick up the altered truck, which was why he was charged with accessory after the fact.

Hersi received a suspended sentence, with three years of probation, after being credited for time spent in pretrial custody: 730 days, which was credited at 1.5 days for every day for a total of 1,095 days.

His lawyer, Sarah Ahsan, said Hersi was present, but it was “unclear what his role was and what he did to aid and abet.” If the case went to trial, Ahsan said, it would have been “a circumstantial case and a conviction was not obvious.”

Ndayishimiye’s family was not present at court, but a witness statement from his sister was read by Neubauer, who said the family was “grief-stricken and traumatized daily by this” and opted to grieve in private.

The witness statement said Ndayishimiye told his family months before his death that people wanted to hurt his family, and they were relocated first to a hotel, then to a shelter, with police escorts accompanying them back home to retrieve their belongings.

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“Had we not been evacuated, we would have been killed, too,” his sister wrote, adding Ndayishimiye’s death had “an irreparable impact on our lives” and left their mother “deeply disturbed emotionally.”

The statement said the family had previously lived in a refugee camp and couldn’t believe Ndayishimiye was shot “in a country we considered to be an island of peace.

“My heart bleeds,” the sister wrote.

Ndayishimiye was robbed of his life, dying cruelly and far too young, Neubauer said, while the other teen suffered “tremendously” from his multiple gunshot wounds.

“This offence has caused catastrophic harm to many people. It was a senseless act of gun violence, and everyone involved showed callous disregard for human life,” he said. “That, in addition to gun violence problem in Ottawa, call for a sentence that needs to lead to deterrence and denunciation.”

Perez and Hersi will also be subject to weapons bans. Perez was previously serving a sentence for aggravated assault and discharging a firearm and will continue to serve the sentence concurrently with his 15-year manslaughter sentence.

The judge noted Perez had a three-year-old daughter, and his father attended much of the court proceedings.

“I’m sure you’ve broken your father’s heart,” she said. “And you can live with that.”

Perez and Hersi were initially charged with first degree murder and attempted murder, respectively, but those charges were withdrawn.

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