By Kathy Gallant

La Loche shooter to be sentenced May 8

Mar 16, 2018 | 5:03 PM

After a placement report is completed about where he will serve his life sentence, the La Loche youth guilty of killing four people and injuring seven others in his community in January 2016 will be sentenced on May 8, 2018.

This date was decided during a brief court session today in Meadow Lake. Judge Janet McIvor met with Crown prosecutor Pouria Tabrizi-Reardigan in person and defence lawyers Aaron Fox and Darren Kraushaar teleconferenced in. The youth appeared via closed-circuit television. McIvor said sentencing should happen as soon as possible.

The shooter was only few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday when he shot Dayne Fontaine, 17, and Drayden Fontaine, 13, in a home, then proceeded to La Loche Community School where he shot nine more people. In addition to the Fontaines, the shooter killed teacher Adam Wood, 35, and teacher’s aide Marie Janvier, 21.

After the youth pleaded guilty last year, two weeks of sentencing hearings took place in May and June to determine if the shooter would be sentenced as an adult or a youth.

McIvor agreed to transfer the youth from Kilburn Hall to the Prince Albert Correctional Centre as court awaits a placement report to determine where the youth will serve his sentence once its handed down. The Regional Psychiatric Centre is being considered as an option. 

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McIvor’s decision to transfer the youth stemmed from a defence application spurred by the youth’s motivation to move forward.

“He’s certainly anxious to move on to the next step, as I think everybody is,” Fox said. “He’d rather start the process and get going with it.”

A publication ban on the shooter’s identity remains in place despite his adult sentence. He is facing life in prison with no chance for parole for 10 years.

Comments on media lockout

McIvor opened the court session by addressing the media in the room, most of whom attempted to cover her sentencing decision last month but were locked out of court. She said she was dismayed to hear that had occurred.

“I’ve really been thinking about this, and I’m glad to see that here in Meadow Lake there are members of the media here,” McIvor said. “I learned after I had delivered my decision. For me as a judge in the provincial court, I take very seriously the open court principle.”

kathy.gallant@jpbg.ca  

On Twitter @ReporterKath

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