Winnipeg man gets eight years for beating acquaintance to death

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This article was published 31/05/2016 (3457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg gang associate has been sentenced to eight years in prison for beating a man to death during a rowdy house party.

Justin Catcheway, 32, pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the January 2014 attack on Justin Desmarais, 24. The Crown had sought a 12-year sentence, while Catcheway asked for six.

Catcheway and Desmarais had been socializing together, which included using cocaine and consuming a large amount of alcohol, court was told. The two men got into a fight after Desmarais apparently had sex with Catcheway’s pregnant girlfriend.

As well, Catcheway claimed Desmarais tried to steal some drugs off him. He admitted striking the man with a bottle and then repeatedly beating him until he was motionless. Desmarais died of blunt-force trauma to the head.

“Don’t worry about it, he shouldn’t have tried to jump me, that’s what he gets,” Catcheway told his girlfriend later that night when she discovered him mopping up a large pool of blood.

Catcheway was originally charged with second-degree murder, but the Crown reduced that charge on the grounds he couldn’t form the necessary intent.

“He was grossly impaired at the time,” provincial court Judge Dale Schille said in handing down his decision Tuesday. He said it’s clear Desmarais was the initial aggressor in the dispute but that Catcheway used an “extreme degree of violence” in finishing it.

Catcheway has a prior criminal record and admits selling drugs on behalf of the Manitoba Warriors gang, court was told.

www.mikeoncrime.com