CityNews Rewind: The Omar Wellington Murder & The Long Silence

It’s a testament to how strong the code of silence is among today’s youth. And it appears it doesn’t matter how serious the situation is.

Those who witnessed the brutal final moments of Omar Wellington’s life should have seen enough to make them come forward and tell authorities who killed the 17-year-old.

But they didn’t.

Wellington’s story began on July 14, 2006, when the young man was last spotted in the sometimes tough Flemingdon Park neighbourhood where he lived.

His last day was one that will forever haunt his grief stricken family.

After some kind of dispute, Wellington was mobbed a by a gang of teens, who kidnapped and tortured him and – in the one words of one witness – “paraded him around like a hostage.”

The last time he was seen added further humiliation to his already beaten body. He was spotted wandering around the area wearing only his underwear and dripping with blood.

“The blood was on his forehead and he had it on his T-shirt, and his socks,” a witness recalled. “People seen him pass by and they asked him ‘Are you okay?’ but he said nothing. He kept walking, he looked like he was looking for those people to fight more.”

His bruised body would be found later in a lonely ravine not far away from the apartment complex where he lived.  

His stab wounds were so bad and he suffered so many injuries to the neck that his family was forced to keep his casket closed at his funeral.

His mother claims she didn’t even recognize her own son when she saw him for the last time.

“He’s badly beaten all over his face and he has cuts from the knife and from the beating … so they beat him all over his face and then stabbed him up,” Joy Wellington recalled on the day he was laid to rest. “It’s awful … it’s really horrible.”

She remains outraged that so many people saw the all-day crime as it unfolded and that almost no one was willing to come forward to tell authorities who inflicted such terrible injuries.

Many were worried that being labelled a “snitch” would put their own lives in danger and the sounds of silence spread like a cancerous presence.

That caused his friends to lash out in fury at this twisted code of conduct.

 “You should be ashamed of yourself because a 17-year-old is dead,” Michael Ward condemned. “You could have helped him and now that’s on your conscience.”

But those who live in the area have a different take on the quiet response – survival.

“I think it is better to mind your own business sometimes,” one witness related. “You can’t go help somebody, then you’re going to get in trouble for helping somebody who didn’t want help.”

After months with plenty of suspects but no solid proof, police finally posted a music video-style presentation on the Internet site YouTube, re-creating the crime and showing some of the evidence.

It featured a song called “Bloodshed in our Streets”, performed by a local artist named Jessie David.

It went up in early February, and, with the guarantee of anonymity and the right audience, the tips they needed finally came in.

Six youngsters, ranging in age from 14 to 17 have been charged with first degree murder.