Crown seeks adult sentence for 2017 murder

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This article was published 07/07/2020 (2136 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Prosecutors are seeking an adult sentence for the then-16-year-old who carried out a 2017 execution-style murder on a Winnipeg street.

A four-day-long hearing began Tuesday for the now-20-year-old man, convicted last year after trial of first-degree murder in the death of Tyler Kirton.

If sentenced as an adult, the man would receive a mandatory term of life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. If sentenced as a youth, he would serve 10 years, with at least one-third of the sentence served under community supervision.

Kirton, 26, was shot to death Jan. 3, 2017, on the 400 block of Thames Avenue.

Court heard evidence at trial Kirton drove to the area with two acquaintances, believing he was going to have a consensual fight with the accused, who lived on the same block.

Instead, Kirton was shot in the chest and left to die on the road.

Evidence at trial included a cellphone video recorded by one of Kirton’s acquaintances which showed the shooting, but not the identity of the shooter.

The accused claimed he had arranged for Kirton to fight a third man and it was another, unidentified suspect who shot Kirton.

The case against the accused was circumstantial, but “all of the pieces of the puzzle combined will point to the guilt of the (the accused) beyond a reasonable doubt,” Crown attorney Jodi Koffman told court at trial.

Those puzzle pieces included a bullet casing found at the scene similar to ammunition later found in the accused’s bedroom. A picture posted on the accused’s Facebook page showed a .22-calibre rifle lying on a quilt matching the same quilt found on the accused’s bed the day of the killing.

Text messages recovered by police following the killing show the accused telling his sister not to say his name if police question her and to delete their conversation.

Later, in a handwritten note to his sister during trial, the accused coached her how to answer questions in court about the incriminating text messages and told her to deny knowing if he sold drugs or had guns.

“If they ask something like, ‘Do you think he would do something like what he is accused of?’ Obviously, you don’t, because I am your brother and you can’t see me doing something like that,” the man wrote.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice David Kroft’s April 2019 written ruling in the case includes no evidence of a motive in the killing.

Prosecutors will outline their case for an adult sentence Wednesday.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca