The trial for one of Canada's youngest serial killers had its share of the spotlight but Cody Allan Legebokoff was not the sole centre of attention at the Prince George courthouse in 2014.
Although not specifically a trial, at times the coroner's inquest into the death of Greg Matters took on the tone of one as Cameron Ward, the lawyer representing the family of the Canadian military veteran, grilled police and investigators about what exactly happened on that night in Sept. 2012.
Like Legebokoff, the proceeding, which ended in January, drew a bigger than average number of court watchers to the gallery in courtroom 104.
While the jury issued recommendations, including one that emergency response team members wear video cameras to record such incidents, the family has since filed a lawsuit against the RCMP and the officer who shot Matters during a confrontation on his Pineview property.
The year began with B.C. Supreme Court Justice Selwyn Romilly sentencing a former Prince George man to 16 years in prison Friday for 11 sex-related crimes against two of his stepdaughters, calling him "evil" and a "monster" in the process.
The man, 55 at the time of sentence and who cannot be named under a court-ordered publication ban against information identifying the victims, often invoked religion to get his way with the two girls, the court heard during a seven-week trial.
"It is said that the devil can cite scripture for his own use," Romilly said. "That is certainly the case here. With a warped and vivid imagination and using passages from the Bible to justify his actions, [the man], in a most vile manner, sexually abused two of his stepchildren on a daily basis for over a decade."
And from what can only be described as coming from the dumb criminal file, Jamie Hal Hammerstrom, 36, was sentenced in June to a further 18 months in jail for attempting to sell stolen firearms through accomplices while he was in custody at the Prince George Regional Correctional Centre.
The plan backfired in more ways than one because Hammerstrom was eventually acquitted on the charges that first put him in custody, only to find himself remaining behind bars facing the new charges.
Over the course of a five-week trial, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown heard 14 recordings of telephone calls Hammerstrom made from jail and concluded references made by those involved to "wooden things," "shorts," "long things," "long pants" and "toys" were code words for the guns.
At least four others were much luckier. In February, the case against case Michael Andrew Joseph Fitzgerald, 34, Francois Christiaan Meerholz, 26, Dillan Meerholz, 24, and Craig Anthony Niedermayer, 37, was thrown out after the key witness refused to testify.
They had been accused of kidnapping and torturing the man believed responsible for the loss of about seven kilograms of marijuana from a Salmon Valley grow operation. He escaped his tormenters by jumping out of the second storey window of a house and, bloodied and frightened, bursting into the nearby Ferndale Community Hall.
Ironically, in November, the man, who cannot be named under a court ordered publication ban, was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to counts of attempting to obstruct justice and disobeying a court order.
In July, Frank William Edward Marion, 51, was sentenced to a further six years and three months in prison for setting a fire in January 2012 that led to the death of his landlord and a noted member of the city's Sikh community, Jagdev Singh Jawanda, 85.
A retired math teacher, Jawanda was described as a deeply religious man who dedicated his life to education and helping others, two of his sons and a daughter said in victim impact statements supplied to the court.
Looking ahead, the cases against two men who were Prince George Fire Rescue firefighters at the time of their arrest remain before the courts. In December, a trial for Jeremy Matthew Kostyshyn was postponed for a second time when, in response to the upgrading of two charges, he re-elected to have the matter held in B.C. Supreme Court before judge alone.
Kostyshyn faces five counts of trafficking involving an excavator,a boat and trailer, a loader and two flat deck trailers and four counts of possession of stolen property over $5,000 involving a boat and trailer, an all-terrain vehicle, an unspecified item and two snowmobiles.
The trial for Benjamin Taffy Williams, accused of possessing a stolen jet boat he told police he purchased from Kostyshy, is set to resume in March.
Also in March, the Prince George courthouse will host what should be another emotionally-charged coroner's inquest, this time into the dust-related explosions and fires that leveled Babine Forest Products near Burns Lake in January 2012 and Lakeland Mills in Prince George three months later. Carl Charlie, 42, and Robert Luggi, 45, were killed in the Babine incident and Glenn Roche, 46, and Alan Little, 43, died from injuries in the Lakeland one.
And in October, two murder trials are scheduled.
Four people face charges in connection with the January 2012 murder of Fribjon Bjornson, whose remains were found in an abandoned home on the Nak'azdli reserve adjacent to Fort St. James.
Wesley Dennis Duncan, 27, has been charged with second-degree murder, Jesse Darren Bird, 31, has been charged with accessory after the fact to murder and interference with a dead body, James David Charlie, 23, has been charged with indignity to human remains and Teresa Marie Charlie, 21, has been charged with accessory after the fact to murder.
As well, a trial for Gordon Stanley Adolph Jr., 23, and Christopher Flanagan, 24, accused of murdering Gordon Stanley Adolph Sr., 42 in April 2013 is also set to go to trial. A youth whose name cannot be released has also faced charges.
Both will be held in B.C. Supreme Court.
