Killer gets five years in beating, kicking death

An alcohol-fuelled argument left one man dead and another suffering numerous cuts and bruises to his head and face after being attacked with a miniature hockey stick.

Zachary Rider earlier pleaded guilty to manslaughter and assault causing bodily harm in connection with a Nov. 22, 2016, altercation inside a 17th Street S.W. apartment.

On Friday, Rider, 38, admitted kicking to death Richard Pember, 58, after attacking Richard Smith inside the apartment the two victims shared.

Justice Earl Wilson accepted a joint sentencing submission by Crown prosecutor Darren Maloney and defence counsel Adriano Iovinelli for a sentence of five years.

With credit for pre-trial custody on remand, Rider will have an additional two years and 10 months to serve.

Reading from a statement of agreed facts, Maloney detailed the deadly encounter which began with the three men drinking and consuming methamphetamines together.

“Sometime during the evening the accused became upset with Mr. Smith and Mr. Pember,” Maloney told Wilson.

“The accused struck Mr. Smith with a mini hockey stick in the head and face,” he said.

Rider then went to the bedroom where Pember was.

“An argument and a physical confrontation occurred between the accused and Mr. Pember, resulting in the death of the deceased.”

At one point Smith saw Rider kicking the victim while he was lying on the floor, the prosecutor said. “Mr. Smith passed out in the living room and later awoke to find the accused had left the apartment and found Mr. Pember not breathing, lying on the bedroom floor,” he continued.

Smith went to a nearby fire hall for assistance and members of the Calgary fire department found Pember dead.

Maloney said an autopsy was later conducted by medical examiner Dr. Angela Miller “who determined the cause of death to be blunt force head and chest trauma.”

Miller found the “deceased had numerous fractured ribs, collapsed lung, and a subdural hemorrhage to his head.”

Maloney told Wilson that while the doctor could not determine how many blows were struck, there were multiple strikes.

“Here we have a large, physically imposing man, we have multiple blows,” the prosecutor said.

Iovinelli said Rider, a member of the Stoney Nakoda, had a tragic upbringing, losing both his mother and a brother to homicide, his father in a car crash and being put in foster care.

Wilson noted heavy boozing led to the manslaughter of Pember, “so often an offence fuelled by alcohol.”

Sometime during the evening the accused became upset with Mr. Smith and Mr. Pember.