Killer in Portage Avenue bar shooting to serve at least 12 years

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This article was published 15/11/2024 (330 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man who waited outside a Portage Avenue bar before killing Lawrence Pruden in a hail of gunfire has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 12 years.

Bryce Walker, 22, pleaded guilty this week to second-degree murder for the Nov. 5, 2023, killing near Classics Billiards Bar and Grill.

Walker, one of two men arrested in the killing, was to stand trial for first-degree murder, but in a plea bargain, agreed to enter a guilty plea to the lesser offence of second-degree murder.

A woman Walker and co-accused Nathaniel Gatehouse-Gilchrist had called to pick them up in a car prior to the killing was the only witness to the shooting, but she could not say who had fired the gun, Crown attorney Adam Gingera told King’s Bench Justice Sarah Inness.

“Had this gone to trial, it would have been on the basis of first-degree murder,” Gingera said. “Proving that beyond a reasonable doubt would have been a key issue,” leaving open the possibility a jury might find Walker guilty only of manslaughter, he said.

Accepting a plea to second-degree murder “is absolutely a compromise; it is nonetheless appropriate in the circumstances,” Gingera said.

Court heard Walker and Gatehouse-Gilchrist had taken a taxi to the bar shortly after 12:30 a.m. and lingered in the area for nearly 80 minutes before a female friend picked them up in a car.

Security video during the intervening time showed Walker carrying a handgun and practising a “shooting stance,” Gingera said.

Around 2 a.m., Pruden and his friend, who had been celebrating Pruden’s 27th birthday, left the bar and were sitting in their car when Walker and Gatehouse-Gilchrist got out of their vehicle, Gingera said.

Walker approached Pruden’s vehicle and fired seven shots through the passenger window, one of which hit Pruden in the head.

Walker and Gatehouse-Gilchrist fled as Pruden’s friend, injured by a ricochet to his cheek, called 911 and returned to the bar for help.

Pruden suffered “catastrophic brain damage” and died in hospital later that day, Gingera said.

Defence lawyer Martin Glazer said Walker and Pruden “had a history” and alleged Pruden had bullied Walker in the past.

Walker “went there to scare the victim, not kill him, but things escalated and he did what he did,” Glazer said.

Inness rejected Glazer’s characterization of the shooting as “spontaneous.”

“The facts speak otherwise,” Inness said. “Not only was Mr. Pruden killed, it was more luck that (his friend) was not also killed given the number of bullets discharged and the fact a bullet struck him in the cheek.”

Gatehouse-Gilchrist has not entered a plea and remains before the court. He is presumed innocent.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca