A Winnipeg teen has been convicted of second-degree murder in the unexplained stabbing death of a man he had just met.
Dakota Beardy, 26, was found in the basement of a Maples home suffering from multiple stab wounds, Sept. 3, 2022. He was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The now 18-year-old accused did not deny killing Beardy, but argued at trial he was so intoxicated by alcohol he had no memory of the attack and should be convicted of the lesser offence of manslaughter.
Court of King’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond rejected the teen’s claim, finding he was not so intoxicated that he could not form the intent to kill.
“I am satisfied that the accused either meant to cause the death of the deceased, or that if he did not intend to cause death, he meant to cause bodily injury to the deceased that he knew was likely to cause his death and was reckless as to whether death ensued,” Grammond said in a written decision released Thursday.
“The circumstantial evidence in this case excludes any reasonable alternatives other than an intent for murder,” she said.
Court heard at trial Beardy was intoxicated on a city bus around 4:30 p.m. when he met a friend, who he then joined at his Mapleglen Drive home to continue drinking. Also living at the home was the accused, and his older sister, Beardy’s friend’s domestic partner.
Beardy, his friend, and the accused’s sister drank together for several hours until Beardy became so intoxicated he fell out of his chair, at which point the three residents took him to a basement room to spend the night.
Sometime later, the teen returned to the basement and repeatedly stabbed, slashed and bludgeoned Beardy for up to half an hour.
The teen returned upstairs shortly after 11 p.m. and told his sister’s partner: “I killed your bro,’” the man testified at trial.
The man and woman went downstairs to check on Beardy and found him injured.
The accused left the house and was arrested a short time later as he tried to break in to a neighbouring home.
Police, still unaware of the attack on Beardy, took the teen to the youth addictions stabilization unit, where he provided a breath sample reading of .224, nearly three times the legal limit for driving.
The teen’s sister didn’t call 911 until 1:05 a.m. When police arrived minutes later, they found Beardy critically wounded and gasping for air. He died in hospital 30 minutes later.
No one witnessed the attack on Beardy, but his wounds speak to his killer’s intent, Grammond said.
Beardy suffered 26 sharp force injuries, including five stab wounds to his abdomen and 18 “chopping wounds” to his legs, and 13 blunt force injuries to his face and upper body. His shoes had been removed and his underwear lowered, exposing injuries to his penis.
“The sheer volume of the injuries inflicted upon the deceased would have taken some time to inflict,” Grammond said. “In addition, the wounds… do not appear to have been inflicted randomly, which suggests a somewhat prolonged attack.”
Beardy was found in the same location he had been left earlier and the orientation of his wounds suggested he did not move as he was attacked and was “essentially defenceless,” Grammond said.
The judge accepted the teen was intoxicated at the time of the attack, but rejected his claim he had been drinking so heavily he “blacked out.”
“Not one witness… at trial who observed the accused testified that he exhibited signs of advanced or extreme intoxication,” she said.
The teen will be sentenced at a later date.
dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
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