In the solemn court room, the haunting and vivid testament of a witness to a lethal crash that obliterated three generations of a Muslim family in London, Ontario, resounded deeply over the presiding jury. Nataniel Veltman, the man under scrutiny for this horrifying act had to listen as Lindsay Marshall brought the grim event alive through her careful recollection.
Marshalled and deeply engrossed in a book on a peaceful June day in 2021, she sat on her apartment balcony looming over the South Carriage Road nearby Hyde Park Road. Her cozy solitude was abruptly jostled when a particular noise yanked her attention.
“I was startled by the aggressive revving of an engine… when I looked up a black pickup truck zipped right across my line of vision heading southwards,” she expressed, her voice carrying traces of the shock.
She elaborated further on the chilling incident, “The black truck abruptly sped up and suddenly veered onto the sidewalk, right afterwards something was flung about thirty or forty feet high… my initial guess was a sign or a mailbox.”
She added that she was located around a football field-and-a-half away from the heartbreaking scene. She recounted that upon the arrival of the police, she observed an officer desperately attempting CPR on a victim while others gathered around another stricken individual.
Marshall revealed to the court that she was gripped by shock and disbelief for about an hour following the incident while she awaited to provide her statement to the police. “In a daze, I messaged my family that I believe I bore witness to a gruesome hit-and-run,” she painfully disclosed.
Only later did she discover that the victims of the tragic incident were four beloved members of the Afzaal family. The deceased included Madiha the mother, Salman the father, Yumnah the fifteen-year-old daughter, and Talat the grandmother. The catastrophe occurred on June 6, 2021.
Their nine-year-old son, the sole survivor of the grisly event, has since rebounded from his injuries and has been integrated into the loving care of close relatives.
Shortly after the calamity, Veltman was apprehended and indicted by London police in a shopping center parking lot, a mere four kilometres from the site of the event.
The accused, now a 22-year-old, has entered a plea of not guilty citing four charges of first-degree murder and a single charge of attempted murder.
As the day wore down, footage of Veltman filmed just minutes after his arrest made its way before the jury. He is shown being escorted to a cell situated in the London Police Service Headquarters.
Veltman’s defence lawyer, Christopher Hicks informed the court of his intentions to play roughly four hours of the clip over the course of the trial.
The video showed Veltman garbed in a white T-shirt adorned with a black cross, barefoot and appearing visibly winded, vehemently denying to officers that he had consumed any intoxicating substances.