Man sentenced for fatal stabbing in Fort McMurray

Judge gives perpetrator credit for early guilty plea following drug-fuelled fight

A 27-year-old who fatally stabbed another man during a street fight in Fort McMurray was handed a six-and-a-half-year sentence Monday.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Vital Ouellette said he gave Brian Christopher Rickett “significant credit” for his early guilty plea to manslaughter in connection to the stabbing death of 33-year-old Mark Wiley.

Wiley and Rickett crossed paths in the early hours of April 7, 2017 while walking down Franklin Avenue in downtown Fort McMurray, according to an agreed statement of facts. Rickett was with his then girlfriend and another woman when his girlfriend and Wiley began trading insults. Everyone involved in the altercation was intoxicated, and Rickett was high on crack cocaine, court heard.

Rickett and Wiley began yelling at each other, and footage captured by a street camera shows Wiley motioning to Rickett to come fight. The two women try to restrain Rickett, but he pushes past and rushes toward Wiley with a “shiny object” visible in his hand.

Initially, Wiley throws Rickett to the ground. Rickett swings a knife at Wiley and gets back up. Then he stabs Wiley twice. Wiley runs away and flags down a car, telling the driver he’d been stabbed.

Rickett briefly chases Wiley, but then walks away with the two women. He later disposes of the knife and his bloody clothes, but he and his girlfriend are caught on surveillance footage attempting to hide the clothes behind an apartment building. His girlfriend later told police where the knife was hidden.

Meanwhile, Wiley had surgery at the hospital in Fort McMurray before being transferred to the University of Alberta Hospital where he died on April 13, 2017.

A warrant was issued for Rickett, and he was picked up by police on April 16, 2017.

Defence lawyer Jordan Stuffco argued for a five-and-a-half-year sentence for his client, while Crown prosecutor Greg Piper urged the judge to opt for an eightyear sentence.

Ouellette said while it is aggravating that Rickett has a criminal record, was on probation, and was supposed to be in treatment for his addictions at the time of the stabbing, there were also a number of mitigating circumstances to be weighed. He said the early guilty plea and “true remorse” expressed by Rickett were taken into account.

He also pointed to the rehabilitative programming Rickett has sought out for himself while in jail. He said that in his 16-and-half years as a judge, Rickett is only the second person to come before him at sentencing who has had his jailers send in letters to court testifying to positive behavioural change.

Rickett’s sentence will be shortened by the nearly 800 days of enhanced credit spent for time in pre-trial custody.