Opening Arguments In Horrific Murder Of Openly Gay British Columbia Man

The Victoria Times-Colonist reports on opening arguments Monday in the second-degree murder trial of Kim Winslow Rothgordt in a British Columbia Supreme Court, Rothgordt accused of killing and robbing 52 year old James Shannon February 13th, 2008, after the two men had arraigned to meet via a gay website. The Crown prosecutor Gordon Baines told the court that Shannon was “not a big man” and that “He lived alone, he had no children, and he was openly gay.” Baines said that in comparison, Rothgordt, 40 years old at the time, was a divorced father of four, in excellent shape, and added that “They set up a date for the early evening of February 13th to have sex” and “that this was going to be Mr. Rothgordt’s first homosexual sex.” According to the Crown, both the prosecution and the defence agreed that Rothgordt killed Shannon by hitting him several times in the head with a hammer, but the defence contends that Rothgordt was acting in self-defence after being violently assaulted and raped. However, a forensic expert is expected to testify that the victim was killed in place, and not the result of violent struggle. Shannon was found February 23rd, naked, on his bed, suffering three stab wounds from a filleting knife, found embedded in his chest. Investigators also found a “small white object” in Shannon’s eye, which later proved to be a candle that had been “jammed through Jim’s eye, through his brain and into the back of his skull.” According to the prosecution, Rothgordt and accomplices entered the home of Mr. Shannon for several days after he was murdered.