Man admits to killing after bid to frame woman
His web of lies about 2014 death unravelled as police dug deeper
On March 1, 2014, following a few hours of drinking and drug use with a pair of new acquaintances, Jessica Dawn Pelletier awoke on a couch inside a seemingly empty house.
She started searching for one of her acquaintances, and literally tripped over him.
A glance told her the man — 41-year-old Marvin Bruce Sefton — was dead.
Terrified, Pelletier fled the house, and ran directly into a member of the Regina Police Service. The third person in the group — the home’s resident Christopher Guy Macgregor — had called 911.
Pelletier was arrested and charged with murder. She spent approximately 1½ months in custody while, on the outside, Macgregor wove a quickly tangling web of lies, pinning Sefton’s death on her.
But police began to doubt Macgregor’s fluctuating stories, and eventually discovered it was he, not Pelletier, who killed Sefton.
On Wednesday, Macgregor appeared at Regina Court of Queen’s Bench, where he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received an eight-year sentence.
The 43-year-old man spent much of the sentencing hearing fighting back tears, breaking down during the reading of victim impact statements from Sefton’s family and while reading from an emotional apology letter he wrote for them.
“There is no amount of sorries that can fix this situation ...,” he said. “I am so ashamed. I cannot ask Marvin Sefton’s family to forgive me when I can’t even forgive myself.”
In her victim impact statement, Sefton’s sister Rhonda Werstiuk wrote Macgregor didn’t just destroy the lives of her family, his actions must have also taken a tremendous toll on the woman he wrongly accused.
Crown prosecutor Chris White told the court the trio had never met each other prior to the night in question.
After meeting at Triple 8 Pizza, Macgregor invited the other two back to his place for what started as a good night.
Somewhere along the way, something changed, and Sefton ended up with multiple stab wounds.
After Pelletier’s arrest, police found themselves faced with a range of statements from the only supposed witness to events — Macgregor, who had placed two 911 calls from his home in the time prior to police arriving. During the second call, Macgregor reported having seen a woman lying next to a knife.
In the days that followed — with Pelletier unable to shed any light on events — Macgregor filled in the blanks with his own story, implicating the woman in the crime.
“He was quick to point the finger of blame away from him and at Miss Pelletier,” White said.
But when his statements went from uncertainty to claims he’d seen Pelletier confronting Sefton with the knife, police became suspicious.
The story really began to unravel when police learned of yet another version, in which he’d reportedly told his sister he’d acted in selfdefence to ward off an attack by Sefton.
Pelletier’s charge was dropped, but it took another two years of investigation — including DNA evidence — before Macgregor finally admitted to police what he’d done.
He told police he stabbed Sefton after the man made a sexual advance toward him. Defence lawyer Noah Evanchuk explained his client was molested by a babysitter as a child, and never dealt with the psychological or emotional trauma — likely leading to his reaction that night.
Sefton’s sister said Macgregor’s actions cost her a “family member that meant everything to me.”
Describing her brother as laidback, outgoing, kind and the sort of person who put others ahead of himself, she said Sefton carried a photo of his son whom he had been trying to find. That son learned on the news of his biological father’s death.
Werstiuk said she is now left with nothing but memories, some of her brother’s ashes, a video she frequently watches of Sefton building a deck, and a Christmas stocking the family still puts out every year with the $2 winning tickets Sefton scratched.
“I still can’t say goodbye to my brother, because in my heart, he never left ...,” she said.
“All I have left are memories, and you can’t take that away from me.”