Two men pay for their part in separate killings

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This article was published 08/02/2022 (1480 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A British Columbia man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for his part in killing another B.C. man outside a Winnipeg halfway house.

Kleon Cassidy Pop, 34, was originally charged with first-degree murder in the July 2020 shooting death of 31-year-old Cody Alexander Sleigh, but in a plea deal with the Crown agreed to enter a guilty plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter.

In an agreed statement of facts provided to court, Pop is identified as the getaway driver for another man prosecutors allege shot Sleigh. That man, Dyllan Petrin, also from B.C., is set to stand trial in April.

Court was told all three men had served prison time together in B.C. before Sleigh, who had been convicted of kidnapping and other offences, was released from Saskatchewan Penitentiary four months prior to his death.

While an exact motive for Sleigh’s killing remains unclear, prosecutors believe it can be traced to “a number of different disputes with various groups in custody,” Crown attorney Chris Vanderhooft told court.

The agreed statement of facts says Sleigh had left a Main Street halfway house shortly before 6 a.m. and was getting into a taxi to go to work when he was shot “multiple times at point blank range, including once to the head.”

The shooter accidentally dropped his wallet as he ran to a waiting car and Pop drove away.

The two accused cleaned the vehicle, returned it to the rental agency, checked out of their hotel and drove back to B.C. in a borrowed car.

Both accused were later arrested in B.C.

“Whether (Pop) knew (Sleigh) was going to be executed, we don’t know,” Vanderhooft said. “He certainly knew something was going to happen and he (participated) anyway.”

Prosecutors had evidence Pop rented the car spotted at the killing scene and security video evidence showing Pop and his co-accused together at a Headingley hotel and various Winnipeg locations, but no evidence putting Pop in the car at the time of the killing.

“The admission by the accused he was the driver at the time of the homicide is a fact that would have been difficult for the Crown to prove (at trial),” Vanderhooft said.

Sleigh was working two jobs and trying to turn his life around after his release from prison, his father John Sleigh wrote in a victim impact statement provided to court.

“A more cowardly crime could not be committed,” Sleigh said. “This was not an accident that took Cody’s life. This was a cold, calculated, premeditated act that saw an unarmed man gunned down on the street on his way to work.”

This is Pop’s second manslaughter conviction. Pop, then 21, was one of two men arrested in 2009 after they stabbed a Merritt, B.C., man to death following a night of drinking. Pop was sentenced in 2012 to two years in jail, which was later reduced on appeal to one year.

In another Winnipeg courtroom Monday, Derek Donald William Franklin pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the October 2019 shooting death of 19-year-old Darlus McKay.

Like Pop, Franklin, 39, did not shoot his victim, but pleaded guilty as a party to the killing.

Co-accused Christopher Murdock pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last November and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.

An agreed statement of facts provided to court Monday said McKay had previously stabbed one of Murdock’s friends when on Oct. 7, 2019, Franklin — carrying a duffel bag Murdock had given him that contained a sawed-off shotgun — and Murdock rode their bikes to McKay’s Pritchard Avenue apartment.

An argument between Murdock and McKay spilled outside where Murdock, now in possession of the shotgun, shot McKay in the back as he ran away.

Court heard Franklin, who was a close friend of McKay’s and considered him a brother, knew that Murdock wanted to fight or even kill McKay and had warned him days earlier to “get out of town.”

Franklin and McKay met in jail and had known each other only six months at the time of the killing.

“Had he not met Mr. McKay in custody we would not be here,” said Franklin’s lawyer, Saul Simmonds.

Franklin provided a full statement to police admitting his involvement, telling investigators he did not believe the shotgun was loaded.

Justice Ken Champagne sentenced Franklin to the equivalent of just under five years in custody.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.com