Forgiveness ‘most powerful gift’: pair sentenced for 2020 murder

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This article was published 20/04/2023 (1128 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nairne Chapais was murdered in an ambush shooting outside his Selkirk Avenue home for reasons that have never been explained.

But as grieving family members continue to struggle with the 23-year-old’s May 2020 death, an uncle has offered two of his convicted killers a message of forgiveness.

“The most powerful gift I have received since this incident is the act of forgiveness,” Vernon Gott said in a victim impact statement provided to court, noting Chapais’s sister died by suicide in the wake of his death, while other family members turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with their loss.

“What I have learned about myself is that it is better to forgive so I can carry on in my own life. If I hold onto the resentment it will kill me, and I hope that when you meet the Creator, he will greet you with open arms.”

Tyler Jack, 24, and Clarence Scott, 33, were convicted after trial of second-degree murder.

On Thursday, Jack and Scott were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 12 years and 15 years, respectively.

A male teen co-accused pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and, in December 2022, was handed a maximum youth sentence of seven years in custody and community supervision.

Jack and Scott had stood trial for first-degree murder.

While the circumstances of the killing “exhibited elements of planning… other reasonable inferences were recognized so as to exclude a first-degree murder conviction,” King’s Bench Justice Joan McKelvey said Thursday.

Police at the time said Chapais and his killers all had gang ties, but court was provided no specific motive for the shooting.

The case against Jack and Scott was largely circumstantial and relied heavily on video surveillance footage from multiple locations before and after the killing.

“I am satisfied that Scott was the shooter of Mr. Chapais in what can be characterized as an ambush of an unarmed and defenceless victim,” McKelvey said, adding Jack aided and abetted by handling the murder weapon and driving Scott and the co-accused youth to Chapais’s home.

Court heard evidence at trial Scott, Jack and the youth met at a Winnipeg hotel the day of the murder before driving and parking a block from the rooming house where Chapais lived. The three offenders then walked to the back lane behind the building, where Scott removed a firearm from a backpack.

Chapais arrived a short time later and was climbing the front stairs when Scott shot him five times.

Chapais died in hospital.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca