KILLER GETS PRISON

Victim’s sister forgives assailant

Joyce Bird vividly remembers the horrific sight of her brother as he lay in a hospital bed dying from a beating at the hands of James Gregory Gurney. Gifford George Good Dagger’s head was three times its normal size, and for months afterward Bird couldn’t close her eyes without seeing his face.

Yet Friday she forgave her brother’s attacker, who was sentenced to four years in a federal penitentiary.

“I have to tell you, I forgive you for what you did to my brother,” a sobbing Bird said during Gurney’s sentencing hearing in Lethbridge provincial court.

Gurney, who initially was set to stand trial this month, pleaded guilty in July to one count of manslaughter. Court was told then that Gurney, 40, beat Good Dagger in a drunken rage Aug. 31, 2015 near the support services residence in which they both lived.

"While it is not clear how the physical altercation started, whether as a consensual fight or with one or the other as the initial aggressor, Mr. Gurney told case workers that at one point he snapped," explained Crown prosecutor Vaughan Hartigan during the July hearing. "Mr. Gurney stated he repeatedly punched Mr. Good Dagger and kneed and kicked him in the body and head."

Court was told Gurney tried to start a fight with Good Dagger twice earlier in the day, both times at the hospital where Gurney had gone for treatment on his hand after punching out a window in his room.

However, afterward at their residence the two men were seen hugging each other and getting along.

About 9:30 that night case workers found Good Dagger lying on the ground in the alley behind the residence. He died in hospital the following day.

“I pray his spirit can be free,” said another sister, Tania Blackplume, during Friday’s sentencing hearing. “No one deserves to die like that.”

Defence lawyer Greg White and Crown Prosecutor Vaughan Hartigan recommended the foursentence, which Judge Derek Redman accepted after hearing details of Gurney’s struggles growing up with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and in abusive foster homes.

Hartigan told court Gurney abused alcohol and suffered emotional, physical, mental and sexual abuse. Many of his own family members died because of substance abuse.

White also acknowledged his client’s tragic life, and pointed out it’s not Gurney’s fault he has FASD and the behavioural problems associated with it. But even with his many problems, Gurney seldom exhibited violence.

“This is out of character for Mr. Gurney,” White said.

However, Gurney’s life, White suggested, was doomed from the start.

“He was raised to almost inevitably become an alcoholic,” White said. “All we can do now is pick up the pieces.”

Although Hartigan recognized Gurney’s challenges in life, and said he should be given some credit for pleading guilty, he reminded court of the vicious attack against Good Dagger.

“There were numerous blows struck,” some while Good Dagger was on the ground and unable to protect himself, Hartigan said. And Gurney didn’t try to get help but left Good Dagger lying on the ground.

Although sentenced to four years in prison, Gurney has already served the equivalent of about three years in custody, for which he was given credit, leaving him just under one year remaining on his sentence. He is also prohibited from possessing weapons for life, and he must submit a sample of his DNA for the National DNA Databank.