A 21-year-old man has been convicted of first-degree murder for a 2013 New Year’s Day shooting.
The jury delivered their verdict on Friday afternoon after about four hours of deliberation.
The accused can’t be named because he was 17 at the time of the offence. He showed no emotion as the eight men and four women on the jury confirmed their guilty verdicts.
Lloyd Robert Sarson, 25, was gunned down around 5:20 a.m. as he sat in the driver’s seat of a car that had stopped in an Eastview alley. His front passenger got out turned and fired repeatedly at Sarson. He was hit by eight bullets and died at the scene.
The brutal killing was witnessed by another man who was sitting in the back seat. Chato Tootoosis described the events of that night and the shooting in detail during his testimony earlier this week.
Crown prosecutor Rajbir Dhillon told the jury Tootoosis’ version of events is backed up by evidence at the scene and the medical examiner’s evidence of the bullet trajectories.
Defence lawyer Karen Molle said Tootoosis lied multiple times to police during the investigation and it would be dangerous to rely on his testimony.
Dhillon confirmed that an application will be made to have the accused sentenced as an adult.
If sentenced as an adult, the accused would face a life sentence with no chance of parole for 10 years. If sentenced under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the accused would face a 10-year sentenced, with six years in custody and fours of community supervision.
A pre-sentence report and a Gladue report, which are available to help the court determine appropriate sentences for First Nations and Métis offenders, will be done before sentencing.
The case returns to court on Feb. 6.
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com