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One in every of 4 males charged within the killing of a Calgary man whose physique was present in his burned-out home, pleaded responsible Friday to a lowered cost of second-degree homicide.
Justin City, 35, had been charged with first-degree homicide within the February 2022 dying of Douglasdale resident Chad Kowalchuk, however Crown prosecutor Shane Parker agreed to a plea to the lesser offence.
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At Parker’s request, Justice Rosemary Nation granted a publication ban on each the agreed information he learn in and sufferer affect statements from kin of Kowalchuk in gentle of the actual fact three co-accused are set to face a jury trial later this yr.
The physique of Kowalchuk, 53, was discovered Feb. 18, 2022, inside his Douglas Ridge Inexperienced S.E. dwelling.
Police indicated it was believed he was killed 5 days earlier.
Parker, in looking for a interval of parole ineligibility of 17 years on City’s automated life sentence, stated there have been a number of aggravating elements justifying a rise from the obligatory minimal of 10 years.
Amongst these are a prolonged prior legal report, he informed Nation.
The prosecutor stated City had 57 earlier convictions since 2011, along with his final one being for a break and enter.
“Not deterred, Mr. City moved up the legal ladder,” Parker stated, of his involvement in Kowalchuk’s dying.
As Parker learn within the information agreed to by the offender and defence counsel Jim Lutz, and as a number of sufferer affect statements have been learn within the Calgary Court docket of King’s Bench listening to, City sat nonetheless within the prisoner’s field, his head tilted showing to attentively pay attention.
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He confirmed no outward emotion because the sufferer’s relations feedback have been learn into the report.
In April 2022, after the primary of the 4 suspects was arrested, Kowalchuk’s sister-in-law, Jacquie informed Postmedia the household was pissed off on the lack of solutions they have been getting about his killing.
“We now have so many questions from the household aspect of it,” she stated on the time.
She stated she and her husband Dean, the useless man’s brother, had develop into estranged from him over the last few years and feared he had returned to a previous drug life-style.
On Friday, the relations obtained some solutions, though what they discovered Friday is roofed by the publication ban.
Additionally they obtained an apology from City.
“I can’t think about the affect in your man’s lives and for that I’m sorry and I really imply all that.”
Three others, Justin Angus Boucher, Ronald Lee Abraham and Robert Wayne Sims, are scheduled to face a five-week jury trial starting Oct. 7.
Nation was to condemn City in a while Friday afternoon.
KMartin@postmedia.com
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