Calgary man found guilty of murder in friend’s killing

Russell Steven Tessier showed no outward emotion Friday as a Calgary jury found him guilty of firstdegree murder in the executionstyle killing of his friend.

Jurors deliberated a little more than 11 hours over two days before ruling Tessier fatally shot Allan Berdahl, 36, five times beside a secluded rural road north of Calgary.

Berdahl’s body was found in a snowy ditch off Range Road 282 east of Carstairs on the morning of March 16, 2007.

The Crown’s case against Tessier was circumstantial, relying on evidence he retrieved a .22-calibre pistol from a gun shop where it was on consignment less than 48 hours before the killing.

Although no weapon was ever found, Berdahl was shot with .22 bullets.

Tessier, 51, was handed an automatic life sentence without parole for a minimum 25 years by Justice Keith Yamauchi.

Before sentencing Tessier, Yamauchi heard a victim impact statement from the dead man’s father, Allan Berdahl Sr.

Read in by Crown prosecutor Britta Kristensen, Berdahl explained how he had to endure not only the killing of his son, but an attack on his son’s reputation.

“He’s been portrayed as a liar, con-man and drug user by some — he is not those things,” the dad said.

Berdahl said the deceased’s siblings will never have a chance to see their brother again.

“All of this has been taken away by a cold-blooded murderer,” he said. “You have taken away a part of my life and I will always have a scar on my heart.”

Outside court, Kristensen said RCMP were able to charge Tessier in 2015, after its cold case unit took another look at the file. She said despite a thorough investigation in 2007 “there wasn’t enough to charge Mr. Tessier at that time.”

But in 2015 the historical homicide unit took another look at the file and submitted further exhibits to the crime laboratory.

“One of those exhibits was a cigarette butt found about 800 metres from the crime scene and that had DNA that came back to Mr. Tessier,” Kristensen said. “That assisted enormously in moving forward with this investigation.”