Two years after her husband stumbled through their door, dying of gunshot wounds, Mary Willar expressed both relief and dismay Friday over the news three men are facing manslaughter charges.

“I just don’t get why people are so violent,” Willar said, still living in the home she shared with victim Mark McCullagh. “It’s been hard. I just keep on keeping on.”

But Willar said she’s happy that London police, whose motives she doubted in the past, persisted in their investigation.

“I figured the way it happened, it was so random, I really didn’t think they’d have much luck finding them. But I can walk around the streets” now, knowing police are moving on suspects.

London police said Friday they have arrested one suspect and were searching for two other men in the shooting death of McCullagh, a two-year-old case that appeared, on the surface at least, to be stalled.

The 36-year-old man was shot outside his 504 English St., home while taking out the garbage March 9, 2015. A group of men fled the scene in a pickup truck.

All three men facing charges have ties to Windsor, police said Friday.



Mark McCullagh

Kenyon Ohamu, 20, was arrested by police in Windsor on Tuesday and charged with manslaughter and armed robbery.

Arrest warrants have been issued for another Windsor man, 37-year-old Steven Atkinson, and 23-year-old Ali Fageer, who is known to travel between Toronto and Windsor.

At least two of the three suspects identified by London police have long rap sheets.

In 2014, Atkinson was arrested in what police called a “high-risk vehicle stop” a few days after a shooting at a Windsor home. A loaded, 9 mm pistol was found in the car, and Atkinson, then 34, was charged with firearm offences.

In April 2015, less than a month after McCullagh was shot, Ohamu was charged with firearm possession in a drug raid and foot chase in Windsor.

Four men pulled up in a cab in front of an apartment building in Windsor’s west end, just minutes after police began seizing drugs from a residence.

One man ran off and ditched a loaded 9 mm pistol on the way. Police eventually caught Ohamu and charged him with firearm offences and failing to comply with court conditions. Police also found another gun, a loaded .357 Magnum revolver, near the cab.

London and Windsor police were tight-lipped about details of Ohamu’s recent arrest, and whether the trio of suspects was on London police radar between 2015 and 2017.

Photos of the two wanted men were not released. London police were giving the two wanted men a chance to turn themselves in, Const. Michelle Kasper said.

The charges came as a relief to McCullagh’s friend and housemate, but the shooting still bewilders and angers him.

McCullagh was shot “for nothing. It was pointless,” said Dan Titus, who lived with McCullagh and his wife for 15 years.

No one in the house had much money, and aside from marijuana for pain, no drugs, Titus said.

“We weren’t dealing or anything. We were just living and being mellow, just taking care of our health.”

At the time of the shooting, Willar criticized police for saying McCullagh knew his assailants. Police were focusing on McCullagh’s past and minor drug use, she said.

In June, London police announced a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and acknowledged at that time that McCullagh was an innocent victim.

Police told her recently the shooting was random, Willar said Friday.

Born in Brantford, McCullagh finished high school and learned how to repair computers from his father, an electrician, Willar said in an interview after the shooting.

She and McCullagh met on London’s streets when they were teenagers and both using drugs.

“We had hard times there. We were kids downtown. We were idiots sometimes. We clashed a little bit with the police,” she said at the time.

Once they were off the streets, McCullagh tried to start a home computer business, but didn’t do well.

On a social media website dedicated to art, McCullagh went by the handle maniclymark and listed himself as an artist/hobbyist/photography.

“Photography is my real passion, but I have dabbled in everything from chalk and charcoal to oils and acrylics. I also love experimenting with different mediums. I also enjoy playing guitar, fishing, and pretty much anything to do with nature,” he posted July 14, 2010.

Willar said he and McCullagh lived on disability payments, and had been clean of all drugs but marijuana for years.

The night of the shooting, she was playing video games when she heard a thump outside, Willar said in previous interviews.

Her husband had been taking out the garbage and stumbled in through the door of the front porch, saying he’d been shot.

Two men she’d never seen before rushed in after, threatened her with a gun, and asked where the money was, Willar said.

Then, confused, the two men ran off, she said.

Police were looking for a red pickup truck with white lettering above the rear wheels.

That vehicle has been located and examined, London police said Friday.

rrichmond@postmedia.com

mstacey@postmedia.com