CityNews Rewind: What Happened Before The Johnathon Killing
Posted September 29, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
That changed on Friday, when a judge sentenced 19-year-old Kevin Madden to life in prison for killing his brother in November 2003.
But the city came to know the anonymous family in an entirely different way in a story that occurred nearly a year before the murder of 12-year-old Johnathon. (Both brothers are pictured at left).
It took place on December 22, 2002 just days before Christmas.
The family, led by stepfather Rolston Champagnie, had just suffered a terrible tragedy. Sometime after the sun went down, a fire razed their Dawes Road home, rendering it unlivable. The blaze only lasted 20 minutes before firefighters got it under control, but it was enough to destroy their Christmas and leave the family without anything.
The boy who would soon kill his own brother and attack his dad with a baseball bat explained to CityNews how he first became aware of the smoke when he asked another family member about an odd smell.
“I was watching TV,” Kevin recalled. “I said ‘do you smell anything?’ She said no.
“Something’s burning,” he continued. “She runs upstairs. She comes back downstairs [and says] ‘Kevin, the house is on fire!'”
It seemed like the end of the world for the family, although firefighters would brighten their final holiday together by bringing them some replacement Christmas gifts.
Knowing what would come, the comments from the soon-to-be attacked step-dad now seem achingly steeped in irony.
“It’s the worst 20 minutes of my life,” Champagnie said then. “You don’t know who’s inside or what’s happening.”
The outpouring of emotion and help that followed also prompted the distraught dad to make another statement that seems haunting in retrospect.
“The people in the city of Toronto are the greatest people in the world,” Champagnie concluded. “The greatest city in the world. And they’re very open and honest and kind … and that’s why this city is the best.”
Less than a year later, Kevin and a friend would grab a knife and a baseball bat, and make the fire seem like a smoldering spark to what happened next.
To see our original video on this story and to get a closer look at Kevin Madden, click the video links.
