EDMONTON - The cases in Edmonton’s courtrooms this year were brutal, bizarre and unbelievable. From mass killings to comical criminals, the legal system was packed with stories.
Warehouse stabbing
Jayme Pasieka spent much of 2014 behind bars undergoing psychiatric evaluations after two men were fatally stabbed and four injured inside a Loblaw warehouse in February. After a delay to secure Legal Aid funding, Pasieka’s case is expected to move forward once his evaluations are completed. Though prosecutors filed a direct indictment to accelerate the case, Pasieka is not expected to reach trial until 2016.
Dylan McGillis murder
In March, after seven years, the family of Dylan McGillis watched one of his killers sentenced for manslaughter. An undercover investigation found that Cleophas Decoine-Zuniga kicked McGillis while an unidentified man stabbed him during a 2006 Whyte Avenue brawl. That night, the young Lloydminster man celebrated his girlfriend’s pregnancy.
"They could have given him 100 years and it wouldn’t have been enough," father Grant McGillis said outside court. "It’s been a long road."
Baby M
Parents of two-year-old twins severely starved, abused and neglected over 13 months in their Edmonton home admitted their crimes in 2014. In April, the father pleaded guilty to manslaughter after one of his girls died in 2012 and the other barely survived her emaciated state. The father was sentenced to 15 years in prison while the mother awaits a sentencing hearing after her own guilty plea to manslaughter in July. Her case will return to court in March 2015.
Vader
It was a tumultuous year for Travis Vader. The suspect in the killings of St. Albert seniors Lyle and Marie McCann saw his murder charges stayed in March after new evidence was discovered by RCMP. In October, he walked free from the Edmonton Remand Centre after being sentenced to time served on unrelated charges. His freedom lasted 10 weeks before he was arrested again once the Crown resurrected the murder charges. Vader is now under house arrest awaiting trial for the McCann killings.
HUB shooting lawsuits
Two years after armoured car guard Travis Baumgartner killed three co-workers and wounded a fourth during a University of Alberta robbery, the case entered the civil courts. In June, families of two victims, Brian Ilesic and Eddie Rejano, sued employer G4S Cash Solutions, Baumgartner and the bank that owned the ATMs where the killings occurred. More than $3 million in lawsuits were filed. Baumgartner was given a life sentence in 2013.
Judge Sully
The career of provincial court Judge Paul Sully ended in July when he pleaded guilty to impaired driving. The judge’s blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit when he ran over a pylon as he pulled into a Calgary Trail Checkstop. Sully, appointed in 1998, resigned the day he was charged. He received a one-year driving prohibition and a $1,500 fine.
Legal Aid decision
Provincial court Assistant Chief Judge Larry Anderson ordered that Legal Aid provide funding for three accused he believed would otherwise not receive a fair trial. The three, all recipients of Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped, were denied funding based on financial eligibility.
"Providing access to justice is the obligation of the government," Anderson wrote.
The August decision put more pressure on the cash-strapped Legal Aid and the province was forced to pay for all accused who obtained court-ordered counsel. In October, Alberta Justice boosted Legal Aid’s budget by $5.5 million.
Basement fugitive
In October, Benjamin Louis Young had his day in court in after 17 years of hiding from the law in the basement of his Onoway home. Young was wanted since August 1995, when he beat a man with both a phone book and a snowmobile belt, fed him an LSD-laced butter tart as truth serum and killed his dog, all over a drug debt.
"I cannot imagine why, for 17 years, police didn’t visit his home, because they would’ve found him there," defence lawyer Peter Royal said. "It’s unbelievable."
Nurse Needletrap
An Edmonton nurse who set a bizarre trap for her husband using cooking oil and syringes was sent to jail in April. Luisa Hernandez was given a six-month sentence for her sloppy revenge scheme against her common-law husband who wouldn’t loan her money during their break-up. Hernandez’s husband managed not to topple onto syringes placed on the couple’s oil-soaked floor before she stabbed him in the neck with a needle. The Alberta Court of Appeal later added a year to her sentence.
Drunk zebra
Marshall Ron Mann was blind drunk and wearing a zebra costume when he stumbled into the wrong house after a costume party in May. In December, he pleaded guilty to assault for punching homeowner John Huget when he was told to leave. Mann then unzipped his black-and-white stripes and urinated on a tree before he and Huget tussled in the front yard as police arrived.
"He eventually got tired of trying to punch me and started biting me," Huget said. "Grappling with a drunk zebra is not the easiest thing in the world."
rcormier@edmontonjournal.com
