TORONTO — A 12-year-old boy has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of Joseph Eric Aubin, a 62-year-old homeless man beaten during a downtown robbery spree that police said targeted the city’s most vulnerable. The plea comes more than a year after Aubin was attacked on a bench at Nathan Phillips Square and later died of his injuries.The boy cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. He was 12 — the youngest age at which a young person can be charged in Canada — when he and Isaiah Byers, then 20, were arrested on August 31, 2025, after a string of early-morning assaults. Byers is accused of swinging the hammer and remains before the courts on second-degree murder and related charges. The Toronto Star said court was shown surveillance video of what the Crown called “a planned spree of violence against vulnerable members of the community.”Toronto police said five men were attacked between 5:45 a.m. and 8:07 a.m. along Yonge St., Dundas St., Gerrard St., College St., and at Nathan Phillips Square near Queen St. W. and Bay St. Most of the victims were over 60. One man was pushed off a bench, another was driven into a hotel-lobby wall, and a 70-year-old homeless man was struck during an attempted robbery and left with a broken arm. Det. Sgt. Stacey McCabe called it “a disturbing crime spree” that “targeted vulnerable members of our city.”.Aubin, who went by Eric and was believed to be from Quebec, was sleeping on a bench outside city hall when the pair approached him. He was taken to hospital with serious injuries and released, then found without vital signs on September 4, 2025. Police later identified him after struggling to find next of kin. He was Toronto’s 29th homicide of that year.The case landed days after then-chief Myron Demkiw warned of a sharp rise in youth charged in homicides and other violent crime, including children as young as 12 and 13. Officers from 52 Division arrested the pair shortly after the last assault. Byers of Toronto was charged with second-degree murder, robbery, assault with a weapon, and aggravated assault. The boy faced parallel youth charges, now resolved on the manslaughter count. A sentencing date for the youth has not been publicly set.
