Man who said he only hit victim once convicted of manslaughter

River Harper died alone in the hallway of his Assiniboine Avenue high-rise apartment building last year, after he was beaten over disputes about vodka and a forgotten tablet one of his killers used to listen to music.

It was just after 6 a.m. on Feb. 25, 2024, when the 19-year-old was found dead of brain trauma outside someone else’s suite.

Two other young men, Jrayden Monias, 23, and Jadar Morrison, 22, were the last people to see Harper alive, having spent time the night before drinking vodka in his suite.

Both were captured on surveillance cameras in the building and elsewhere.

Monias pleaded guilty to manslaughter recently, but Morrison went to trial in front of provincial court Judge Denis Guénette, with his lawyers arguing he was not responsible for the blows that killed Harper.

Guénette didn’t buy it, finding Morrison guilty of manslaughter in a written decision issued last week.

The judge said, under the law, everyone who participates in an assault can be guilty of manslaughter “regardless of which particular offender delivered the specifically fatal strike,” he wrote.

“In law, the blow of one is the blow of them all.”

The assaults weren’t captured on tape, but surveillance video from the apartment’s hallway showed the progression of Harper’s injuries before he passed out on the ground and died.

The group arrived at Harper’s 14th-floor suite just before 10 p.m. on the night of Feb. 24 to drink, while Morrison went to a bedroom to listen to music on his tablet with earphones, agreed statements of fact filed in the case said.

Soon after, Morrison heard Monias and Harper arguing, as Harper warned he had “shooters,” which the pair believed to mean he was threatening them with gun violence.

Morrison and Monias went to leave and Morrison went for the vodka, but Harper shoulder-checked him, keeping the bottle out of reach. Morrison responded by punching Harper in the face before Monias tackled the victim, punching and kicking him. Morrison said he did not hit Harper again.

Morrison grabbed the booze and the pair headed to a convenience store just before 10:20 p.m., surveillance cameras captured.

After the pair left, Harper was seen on camera bloody and unbalanced as he tried to light a cigarette.

Morrison realized he had left his tablet at he apartment, so the pair returned at 10:37 p.m., the decision said.

Back in the suite, Morrison asked where the device was and Harper shrugged as he cleaned up.

Morrison went to check the bedroom, and heard a commotion in the living room, where returned to see Monias standing over Harper, the decision said.

Monias yelled he found the device and as the men went to leave, delivered a kick to Harper’s head while he was on the floor.

Cameras captured Harper leaving his suite shortly after 11 p.m., stumbling around before falling to the floor a few minutes later. His lifeless body was discovered the next morning.

Morrison’s defence lawyers, Matt Gould and Keenan Fonseca, argued it could have been the fall that gave Harper the fatal injury, suggesting Harper’s earlier unsteadiness in the hall could have been because he was drunk.

The judge disagreed, as Morrison said they only had a few shots of booze each, and there was no evidence any were impaired on the video when they arrived at 10 p.m.

The defence team also argued the assaults should be considered separate events, but Guénette disagreed.

The judge found Morrison did nothing to stop the initial violence, which he had started, or prevent the later beating.

Monias and Morrison will be sentenced at a later date.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca