Man found guilty of second-degree murder for 2021 beating death

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This article was published 28/06/2023 (864 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba judge has found a man who beat his roommate to death with a two-by-four guilty of second-degree murder, rejecting his claim he was acting in self-defence.

Justin Monro, 29, will be sentenced in the fall, following the completion of a court-ordered pre-sentence report.

Derek Scott Sutton, 37, died May 19, 2021, following an attack at his Beverley Street home in Winnipeg.

The minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.

In what King’s Bench Justice Vic Toews described Wednesday as a “somewhat unusual” feature of the case, Monro had no criminal convictions prior to killing Sutton.

Toews told Crown and defence lawyers he was unlikely to raise Monro’s period of parole ineligibility, given his previous clean record.

“Without prejudging the matter, I don’t see myself raising the bar in terms of the ineligibility for parole in this case,” he said.

Court heard evidence at trial earlier this year Monro and his girlfriend were at Sutton’s home, where Monro had been living for a time, when the two men got into an argument that quickly became physical, ending with Monro striking Sutton in the face with a piece of dimensional lumber at least seven times.

Security video captured Munro walking down a back lane with his girlfriend and discarding the two-by-four behind a shed, where it was later recovered by police.

In a subsequent interview with police, Monro claimed Sutton returned home to find his belongings trashed by an unidentified intruder and blamed Monro for not stopping him.

Sutton attacked him and, when the fight spilled outdoors, Sutton armed himself with a two-by-four and started swinging it, Munro said.

Monro said he disarmed Sutton, and hit him several times in the head with the piece of wood. Monro told police he had used drugs earlier in the day, but was not high at the time of the attack.

Toews rejected Monro’s claim he was provoked, pointing to his comments to police stating he was “totally… in control” during the attack.

Toews said he believed Sutton attacked Monro, but Monro, who was not injured, responded with excessive force he knew could have killed Sutton.

“While (Monro) was entitled to use reasonable force against Mr. Sutton in the circumstances… there was a needless escalation and the continued use of significant and unwarranted force by the accused,” the judge said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca