CHESTERVILLE – A murder trial for a man accused of killing a Chesterville man in 2009 has been moved to Ottawa, Cornwall Newswatch has learned.
James Henry “Jimmy” Wise, 77, was charged in May 2018 with first-degree murder in the 2009 disappearance of 59-year-old Raymond Collison.
Collison’s remains were later found in a ditch near Morewood in April 2014.
After going through a number of judicial pretrial hearings this summer, the venue for the trial has been switched to Ottawa.
Court records at the Cornwall courthouse show the change of venue was done on consent, meaning both the prosecution and defence agreed to the change. The trial had been originally scheduled for late March through May this year in Cornwall – a scheduling that took place prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
The six week trial in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Ottawa starts today (Nov. 9).
Wise, a retired mechanic who had been in a Winchester nursing home, has been in poor health and was in a wheelchair after suffering a stroke several years before his first court appearance in June 2018.
If convicted of first-degree murder, Wise could face life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.