On Monday a B.C. Supreme Court Justice reduced a conviction of second degree murder to manslaughter for Ricky John Smith in the 2004 death of Brent Melanson in the parking lot of a Prince George fast food restaurant.
Justice Kathleen Ker found there was reasonable doubt that Smith struck the fatal blow but did find Smith had struck Melanson in other areas with a machete during an altercation at the Third Avenue Dairy Queen and that he understood using the weapon could be potentially fatal.
Smith's sentence was reduced to the same conviction Cameron Alexander Miller received for his part in the attack. Miller was sentenced to four years in jail in 2006.
For the Oct. 31, 2010 death, Smith had been sentenced in June 2006 to life without chance of parole for 13 years. But in January 2010 a retrial was ordered after the B.C. Court of Appeal found the trial judge "unfairly and inaccurately" summarized evidence from one of the forensic pathologists when giving instructions to the jury. The findings of the pathologist, Dr. James McNaughton, were of particular concern for Ker who found shortcomings with how he reached his conclusion that all six of the cuts Melanson suffered were from a machete.
Specifically, Ker noted McNaughton failed to account for the discrepancy between the size of the wound and the dimensions of the machete blade and did not consult with the surgeons who had tried to save Melanson's life after he was transported to the hospital.
Melanson bled to death from a wound to the right side of his neck that severed both his external and internal jugular veins, suffered in an altercation that began with Smith and Miller rushing his truck and then Melanson trying to escape on foot.
While there was evidence he took a slash from the machete to the same area on his neck, Ker found it also conceivable the fatal wound came from another weapon, although only a machete was found at the scene.
She noted Smith was seen on the left, driver's side of Melanson's truck when they attacked him while Miller was on the right, passenger side, which "makes it more likely [Miller] inflicted the fatal wound after [Melanson] came out of the vehicle," Ker said.
Ker also dismissed Crown prosecution's argument Smith had intended to kill Melanson, a key aspect in finding a person guilty of murder.
Earlier the same night, Melanson was called to Duchess Park secondary school to pick up his sister after she was sprayed with beer by Smith during a rowdy party at a nearby apartment block. Despite being urged by his sister as well as his fiance, who had joined him for the ride, to simply go home, Melanson insisted on confronting Smith. The court heard Melanson drove to a parking lot behind the building, then left and came back a second time, by which time his sister got out of the truck because she did not want to see her brother fight.
When Melanson and his fiance returned to the scene, a group responded by hitting his truck with various items. Melanson quickly drove away and then stopped at the Dairy Queen to call 9-1-1 on a payphone. By that time, Smith and Miller had left with two other people in a vehicle, but when they spotted Melanson, they jumped out, with Smith brandishing the machete he had brought to the party.
Melanson retreated to the truck but his fiance did not get back in and instead ran out onto the middle of Third Avenue. Eyewitness accounts of what happened next were problematic, Ker found, because the fiance had "closed her eyes in disbelief," and another onlooker had vacated the area completely, retreating to the other side of a nearby motel.
Ker found there was reason to believe Smith and Miller did not go looking for Melanson when they left the party and when they did, they had intended initially to attack his truck only in what she characterized as a "frenzied melee." However, Ker found a reasonable person would know that attacking someone with a machete could result in death and found Smith guilty of manslaughter.
The verdict did not sit will with Melanson's friends and family.
"I hope he (Smith) can't look at himself in the mirror everyday and if he does, I hope he finds a murderer in there because that's exactly what he is," said Melanson's mother, Valerie Stobbe, from her home in Kelowna.
Outside the Prince George courthouse, family friend Lark Videgain maintained Smith and Miller were indeed looking for Melanson and Richelle Vankoughnett, the mother of Melanson's son from a previous relationship said her nine-year-old boy is without a father, "and what does this guy get?"
Smith will be sentenced at a later date.
