A cousin of the man drug dealer Darren Cayley Daniel Sundman killed more than a decade ago told a sentencing hearing in BC Supreme Court on Aug. 18 that she still suffers sleepless nights, relentless nightmares and persistent heartbreak.
Sundman was convicted in 2018 of second-degree murder and sentenced to at least 16 years without parole for fatally shooting 24-year-old Jordan McLeod on Jan. 16, 2015. The Crown successfully appealed in 2021, and the Supreme Court of Canada agreed in 2022, that Sundman was guilty of first-degree murder, worth an automatic 25-year sentence without parole.
Natalie Lawrence told Justice Marguerite Church in Prince George that the killing ended a 637-day period without a murder in Prince George and shattered her family.
“This trauma will echo throughout our lives and the lives of future generations,” Lawrence said in her victim’s impact statement.
Lawrence also directly addressed Sundman, who attended via video conference.
“Darren Sundman, your actions and choices are unforgivable. There is no apology, no excuse, no passage of time that could ever undo the sheer brutality of what you have done,” Lawrence said. “You have decided to live your life in a way that reaps destruction and permanent harm onto others. I'm only one of the many people who have to live every day with the consequences of what you did.”
Crown prosecutor Tyler Bauman told Church that Sundman must be sentenced to the fullest extent of the law because of his coercive, violent and intimidating treatment of McLeod and the brutal nature of the murder with an illegally purchased handgun.
The court heard that Sundman was a backseat passenger in a pickup truck driven east of Prince George by his brother, Kurtis Riley Sundman. McLeod was in the front seat when a simmering conflict flared up over a drug debt owed by the Sundmans, who accused him of encroaching on their turf in the Vanderhoof market.
The Sundmans verbally and physically assaulted unarmed McLeod, who promised to forgive the debt if they left him alone. McLeod eventually jumped out of the vehicle on Upper Fraser Road. The Sundmans and another passenger, Sebastian Blake Martin, exited the vehicle and began to shoot at him around 11:30 p.m.
“It would be difficult to overstate the level of fear or hopelessness Mr. McLeod must have felt in his final moments,” Bauman said.
Sundman compounded the indignity by callously disposing McLeod’s disrobed body onto the Kaykay forest service road north of Prince George, Bauman said.
Bauman said the duration of the court proceedings has exacerbated the grief for the victim’s family. Sundman committed the crime in the context of a drug dealing gang and had a record of prior offences.
“He must be sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole,” Bauman said.
The sentencing hearing would have happened earlier this year, but BC Supreme Court Justice David Crossin ruled in January that the automatic 25-year sentence without parole for first degree murder is unconstitutional. In July, Justice Robin Baird sent Luciano Emilio Mariani to jail for 25 years without parole, but he can apply to the court after 15 years for a reduction in sentence under the so-called “faint hope clause.”
Sundman’s sentencing hearing, scheduled for three days, continues Aug. 19.
Martin was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to no parole for at least 13 years. Kurtis Riley Sundman was ordered to serve 12 years for manslaughter, but the sentence was reduced by four-and-a-half years for time served.
