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Manslaughter charges stayed in overdose case

Sep 11, 2017 | 11:41 AM

LETHBRIDGE – Two charges of manslaughter against a 43-year-old Blood Tribe man have been stayed by the Crown, following a guilty plea to one count of trafficking.

The stay for Bobby Weasel Head was granted Monday morning (Sept. 11) to discontinue the case. The Crown does retain the right to recommence the proceedings within one year.  

The guilty plea came last Wednesday (Sept. 6), with Weasel Head admitting to distributing fentanyl to his friends. He was sentenced to nine months in jail, with credit for 11-days in pre-trial custody.

“We agreed that the accused would plead guilty to trafficking and we laid a replacement information to deal with that, and then we would stay the [Queen’s Bench] indictment,” explained Joshua Chan, a Crown prosecutor with the Calgary Rural and Regional Response Office.

He was celebrating his birthday in Standoff on Mar. 20, 2015, when his friends asked him to buy drugs. Weasel Head provided the fentanyl and the three of them consumed it, with all of them overdosing.

Weasel Head was taken to hospital, where he was revived, but the other two individuals, Roxanne Nona Blood and Timothy Glen Eagle Speaker died.

It was revealed in court that Weasel Head started using drugs when he was 13-years-old, and started drinking when he was 15. He was also abused by his stepfather and his mother attended a residential school.

Two co-accused, Charles Shouting and Jessica Good Rider, face charges of criminal negligence causing death. Their trial is currently set for April of 2018.