A 25-year-old Newmarket man will be sentenced in November in connection to the 2022 shooting death of a 22-year-old woman.
Alexander Jolly pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of Nicole Mercer, the mother of a five-year-old boy at the time of her death in Newmarket. He will be sentenced on Nov. 3.
York Regional Police charged him with murder and issued an arrest warrant for him.
Officers found Mercer with a life-threatening gunshot wound in the yard of a house on Prospect Street, south of Gorham Street, at 1:30 a.m. July 29, police say. She was treated by emergency services and transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
He was arrested at Yorkdale Shopping Centre on Sept. 9, 2022 in Toronto and initially charged with second-degree murder and several firearm offences.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Jolly and his friends were in his room when Mercer left because of the loud noise. She returned to the house and knocked on the door of the room, when Jolly pointed a gun and fired.
A co-accused, 20-year-old Maitland Doran of Newmarket, received a conditional sentence of two years less a day under house arrest last year for accessory after the fact to murder. Police charged him with accessory after the fact, possession of a firearm, and possession of a prohibited weapon. The court heard he helped Jolly leave town after the incident.
