Man with cannibal fantasies gets taxpayer funded lawyer for murder appeal
TORONTO — A man convicted of butchering his best friend at a hotel and stuffing the body parts into two hockey bags can have a taxpayer-funded lawyer to argue his appeal, Ontario’s top court ruled on Wednesday.
In granting the funding request, Appeal Court Justice Peter Lauwers said it wasn’t his role to weigh in on the merits of the appeal but to determine whether James McCullough had reasonable grounds to contest his convictions for first-degree murder and committing an indignity on a body.
Evidence was that McCullough, then 22, killed and dismembered Alex Fraser, 20, after they took a taxi from Orangeville, Ont., to a hotel in London, Ont., in September 2013. Some of Fraser’s arm was never found.
At trial, the prosecution maintained the motive for the murder was McCullough’s desire to “cut up and eat a person,” court records show.