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Teen to be sentenced as an adult for La Loche shootings

Feb 23, 2018 | 11:02 AM

Two years, a month and a day after a 17-year-old killed four people and injured seven others in La Loche, Judge Janet McIvor has ruled he will be sentenced as an adult and will receive life in prison.

The Meadow Lake-based judge announced her decision just before noon today, after pouring over evidence and statements provided during two weeks of sentencing hearings in May and June 2017. McIvor called the crime “henious” and said an adult sentence was fitting. She also said the shooter, for the most part, “seemed unaffected” by the victim impact statements. Several in the courtroom clapped when the judge announced he would be sentenced as an adult. 

The case has been adjourned until Mar. 16 in Meadow Lake, and a publication ban on the name of the shooter remains in place until then.

The shooter, now 20, pleaded guilty to several charges in October 2016 including two counts of second-degree murder for killing brothers Dayne and Drayden Fontaine in their home. He also was charged with two counts of first-degree murder for killing Adam Wood, 35, and Marie Janvier, 21, and attempted murder after shooting and injuring seven others. 

Crown argued an adult sentence was warranted, given the seriousness of the offence and how the teen talked about shooting up the school to a friend a few months earlier, as well as performed internet searches on guns and what it would feel like to kill someone.

The shooter’s defence lawyer Aaron Fox asserted the various cognitive issues the teen faces, including an IQ of 68 and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, meant he didn’t have the full grasp of coping with various stressors in his life. Fox said he ‘slipped through the cracks’ was a ‘black sheep’ in his family.

Media were completely locked out from most of the proceeedings in La Loche. According to the court, it was due to capacity issues.

 

More to come.

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