(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)
June 30, 2015 - 9:00 PM
RECEIVES SAME SENTENCE AS LAST TRIAL
KAMLOOPS - A convicted killer could be back out in the community in roughly five years’ time after he was handed his sentence today, June 30, for his 'sheer brutality' in the 2008 murder of a Lytton man.
Kamloops Supreme Court Justice Dev Dley handed Cory Bird, 27, the mandatory life sentence for second-degree murder with no chance of parole for 12 years. Given he was arrested in 2008, Bird will be eligible to apply for parole in 2020. His application for day parole could come as early as 2017.
A jury convicted Bird of the charge in February and made no recommendations on sentencing.
Bird killed Albert Michell, 40, a man he was staying with in the summer of 2008. The two consumed alcohol and marijuana before passing out in the victim’s apartment. Dley said the accused woke up to Michell watching a pornographic video and took his shorts off before the victim performed oral sex on him.
Bird stabbed Michell in the throat, placed him in a chokehold and delivered subsequent stab wounds with a switchblade. Dley said the accused then grabbed a steak knife to ‘finish him off’. In total, Michell sustained 73 stab wounds.
During trial, Bird’s lawyer Sheldon Tate argued Michell sexually assaulted his client and said he was acting in self-defence.
Dley acknowledged Bird lives with personality disorders, including narcissistic personality disorder and is impacted by removal of his aboriginal culture when he was placed into foster care as a child.
Despite the mitigating circumstances, Dley found reason to increase jail time before parole eligibility given the ’sheer brutality of the killing'. The judge drew on previous findings from a psychiatrist who said Bird is at a moderate to high risk of commit another crime.
“Protection of society is paramount (and) requires parole eligibility be increased,” he said.
Bird hitchhiked to Montreal after the crime and was arrested in a post office. He was convicted in 2011 but won a new trial on appeal. Today’s sentence was the same handed to Bird in the first trial.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Glynn Brothen at gbrothen@infonews.ca, or call 250-319-7494. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2015