Judge sentences 19-year-old to maximum youth term for murder committed when he was 16

A now 19-year-old man guilty of the unexplained murder of someone he had just met has been handed a maximum youth sentence of seven years custody and supervision in the community.

Prosecutors had been seeking an adult sentence for the offender, who was 16 when he beat and stabbed 26-year-old Dakota Beardy to death in the basement of a Maples home in September 2022.

The offender was convicted of second-degree murder. The minimum sentence for an adult convicted of second-degree murder is life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 10 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.

King’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond rejected the Crown’s adult sentencing application, ruling Wednesday the offender’s actions during and following the killing revealed an absence of adult-like reasoning and sophistication.

“I have considered both the circumstances of the offence and (the offender’s) post-offence conduct, and in my view neither reflect cautious or mature behaviour,” Grammond said. “Rather, (he) acted impulsively, incautiously and immaturely… (and) appears to have initiated the attack on the spur of the moment, using weapons of opportunity.”

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 at about 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 “made no attempt to hide what he (did)… without apparent regard for the consequences,” Grammond said.

The offender left the house and was arrested a short time later as he tried to break into 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 alcohol 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, 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.

Grammond endorsed a defence recommendation that the offender serve his sentence under an Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision order. The program allows youth participants access to one-on-one counselling, occupational therapy, tutoring and other specialized services, at a cost of $100,000 a year.

Participants in the IRCS program must be guilty of a serious violent offence, suffer from a mental illness or disorder and have a treatment program that case workers believe will reduce their risk to the public. Court has heard the offender was diagnosed last year with multiple mental disorders.

The offender was released on bail in 2024 to live in a specialized foster home and since then has “engaged in a meaningful way with supports… and is already well on his way to rehabilitation and reintegration,” Grammond said.

“In my view, his progress shows promising rehabilitative potential going forward,” she said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca