No more jail time urged for teen found guilty of second-degree murder

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This article was published 25/09/2025 (345 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Lawyers for a teen guilty of stabbing a man to death for no known reason, just hours after they met, are urging a judge to sentence him to no more time behind bars.

“No one benefits when we compound the tragedy of a crime by throwing away the life of a child in the name of retribution,” defence lawyer Kaitlynn Porath told King’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond at a day-long sentencing hearing Wednesday.

“No matter how serious a crime they commit, we can never lose sight of a young person’s potential for rehabilitation,” Porath said.

The now 19-year-old man was found guilty last year of second-degree murder in the September 2022 killing of 26-year-old Dakota Beardy.

Beardy was found in the basement of a Maples home suffering from multiple stab wounds and other injuries before being rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The offender was 16 years old at the time of the killing. Prosecutors are urging Grammond to sentence him as an adult to life in prison with no chance of parole for seven years.

Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, youths are considered to be of “diminished moral blameworthiness,” compared to adults. To persuade a court to impose an adult sentence, prosecutors must successfully “rebut” that presumption and satisfy a judge that a youth sentence isn’t long enough to hold an offender accountable.

Witnesses reported the teen appeared “calm” as he descended the basement stairs prior to killing Beardy and remained calm when he returned upstairs some 30 minutes later, Crown attorney Matt Armstrong told court.

“To climb those stairs, after leaving that room, and to be calm… absent some psychotic break, requires a measure of steeliness and control of ones’ self,” Armstrong said.

A psychiatric report prepared for court provided no insight into why the offender killed Beardy, Armstrong said.

“(Beardy) had done him no harm in this world,” he said. “The report brings us no closer to understanding why… and that unanswered question casts a shadow over these proceedings.”

The maximum youth sentence for second-degree murder is seven years.

While the offender made positive strides toward rehabilitation when he was in custody and since his release on bail last year, only an adult sentence can hold him accountable for the killing, Armstrong said.

“He decided everything that happened that day,” he said, noting the wounds inflicted on Beardy weren’t random, and demonstrated “dexterity and control.”

“The gravity of the offence is shockingly high,” Armstrong said.

The offender did not deny killing Beardy, but argued at trial he was so intoxicated by alcohol he had no memory of the attack and should be convicted of the lesser offence of manslaughter. Grammond rejected the teen’s claim, finding he was not so intoxicated that he could not form the intent to kill.

Court heard at trial Beardy was intoxicated on a city bus around 4:30 p.m. when he met a friend, who he then joined at his Mapleglen Drive home to continue drinking. Also living at the home was the offender, and his older sister, Beardy’s friend’s domestic partner.

Beardy, his friend, and the offender’s sister drank together for several hours until Beardy became so intoxicated he fell out of his chair, at which point the three residents took him to a basement room to spend the night.

Sometime later, the offender returned to the basement and repeatedly stabbed, slashed and bludgeoned Beardy for up to half an hour.

The teen returned upstairs shortly after 11 p.m. and told his sister’s partner: “I killed your bro,’” the man testified at trial.

The man and woman went downstairs to check on Beardy and found him badly injured.

The offender left the house and was arrested a short time later as he tried to break in to a neighbouring home.

Police, still unaware of the attack on Beardy, took the teen to the youth addictions stabilization unit, where he provided a breath sample reading of .224, nearly three times the legal limit for driving.

The teen’s sister didn’t call 911 until 1:05 a.m. When police arrived minutes later, they found Beardy critically wounded and gasping for air. He died in hospital 30 minutes later.

Beardy suffered 26 sharp force injuries, including five stab wounds to his abdomen and 18 “chopping wounds” to his legs, and 13 blunt force injuries to his face and upper body. His shoes had been removed and his underwear lowered, exposing injuries to his penis.

Beardy was found in the same location he had been left earlier and the orientation of his wounds suggested he did not move as he was attacked and was “essentially defenceless,” Grammond said.

The judge accepted the teen was intoxicated at the time of the attack but rejected his claim he had been drinking so heavily he “blacked out.”

Porath is asking that the offender serve a seven-year sentence under community supervision, as part of an intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision order. Under the program offenders are provided access to one-on-one counselling, occupational therapy, tutoring and other specialized services at a cost of $100,000 a year.

Porath argued a host of factors served to reduce the Indigenous offender’s moral culpability for the killing, including a family history of substance abuse, violence and residential school involvement, housing instability, and mental-health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder and social anxiety.

“All of these factors have influenced his trajectory,” Porath said.

Beardy’s brother Dustin Beardy described him as the “glue” that held their siblings together after years of separation in foster care.

“He defended the weak and stood with conviction,” Dustin told court. “I regret not being there to protect him when he protected me all my life.”

Sister Denise Beardy said her brother’s murder “broke (her) spirit.”

“He went through life never wanting to see anyone suffer,” she wrote in a victim impact statement provided to court.

The offender apologized to Beardy’s family, saying he was “truly ashamed” of himself.

“I couldn’t feel worse for what I did three years ago,” he said.

Grammond will sentence the offender later this fall. He remains free on bail.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca