Gerald Miles Pattison was found guilty Wednesday of second degree murder in the shooting death of Ryan Edward Hibbs three years ago.
Pattison had been claiming self defence during the trial, which lasted nearly four weeks, but the jury saw otherwise as it delivered its verdict at about 9:30 p.m.
Hibbs was killed Oct. 17, 2008 following an argument with Pattison on a large ranch property in Salmon Valley where Pattison and Hibbs's aunt lived in separate homes.
At one time, Deborah Hibbs was in a common law relationship with Pattison and she lived in the larger of the two homes while Pattison lived in one attached to the stage that was once the centrepiece of the Salmon Valley Country Music Festival.
Over the three years preceding the shooting, many members of Hibbs's family had come up from the Lower Mainland to do work on the property and the houses and became well known to Pattison, Crown counsel Shannon Keyes said Thursday in an interview.
Pattison was running a marijuana grow operation and was using some equipment Ryan Hibbs was providing and had offered to sell at a discount, said Keyes.
Pattison had not yet paid the money and when Hibbs asked him for some cash to go into town and celebrate his 27th birthday he was rebuffed.
An argument followed at Pattison's home and when Hibbs left for his aunt's home, Pattison went into his bedroom to retrieve a rifle and three bullets.
Hibbs's younger brother, Jamie, who was still in the house, tried to calm Pattison down and when that failed, ran to the aunt's house and tried to talk his brother out of trying to retrieve the equipment warning that Pattison had a gun.
"And the big brother says 'oh, he's not going to shoot me," Keyes said.
Moments later, the first shot was heard and Jamie ran down to Pattison's home "screaming and crying, 'No, no!'" arriving in time to see the two struggle for the rifle, said Keyes. But Hibbs was shot in the arm and had only one arm on the rifle, according to testimony from Jamie Hibbs.
Pattison shoved his brother away and shot him a second time, Jamie Hibbs further testified, according to Keyes. Ryan Hibbs then turned to his brother and told him to call 9-1-1 and then died.
Pattison, meanwhile, called 9-1-1 himself to say he had been attacked by multiple people and that Hibbs had a gun, then saying a weapon, the court also heard.
"He was trying to set up self defence, in my view," Keyes said.
The court also heard from two pathologists. One who testified on behalf of the Crown, found the fatal shot entered Hibbs's back and exited his chest while the first shot went through the back of the arm while the other, testifying for the defence, found there was just one shot that went in through the arm, into the chest and out the back.
Jury deliberations are kept behind closed doors, Keyes cautioned.
"There's no way to know with a jury what parts of the evidence they accepted and what parts they didn't but it could well have just come down to, in the end, not accepting the self defence from the guy who went and got the gun and got the bullets and went outside and started firing," Keyes said.
"There was a fair bit of dispute over the testimony of the two pathologists. In the end, I don't know how much of a difference that made."
A sentencing hearing will be held today at Prince George courthouse.
