Killer gets life sentence for savage attacks

Man’s smirk in court upsets victims’ families

A Queen’s Bench judge ordered a 24-year-old man to serve a life sentence with no chance of parole for 20 years for killing two men and seriously injuring two others in three incidents affecting four different families.

On New Year’s Day 2013, Raven Don Constant stabbed Cole McKay and a 17-year-old boy outside the Blue Diamond restaurant in Saskatoon. He then crossed the street and stabbed 28-year-old Jonathan Moosewaypayo 18 times, killing him.

Court heard the violence was completely random.

Constant pleaded guilty in the midst of his 2017 trial to two counts of aggravated assault and one count of second-degree murder.

Sentencing was adjourned because he was also charged with aggravated assault for attacking an inmate at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre on Oct. 23, 2017 — a week before he went to trial.

Cornell Richard Henry, 40, died in hospital from blunt force trauma to the head a day after Constant pleaded guilty to his other crimes.

On Friday, Constant pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with Henry ’s death. Court heard he and another man followed Henry into his cell and beat him for about a minute. It happened after a corrections worker accidentally left paperwork on a food cart, and some of Henry’s file was subsequently discovered missing, the Crown said.

The Crown and defence jointly proposed a 12-year sentence on the manslaughter charge, to be served concurrently to the 20-year parole ineligibility on the murder charge and a six-year concurrent sentence for the aggravated assaults.

“These are terrible crimes. You have ruined families,” Justice Richard Danyliuk said after accepting the joint submission.

Some members of the four families became vocally upset as Constant appeared to smirk from the prisoner’s box. The Crown read their victim impact statements, which contained a common theme of paranoia and fear due to the randomness of the crimes.

“We could have died. We almost did,” McKay wrote in his statement.

Court heard that his friend, the teen victim, died of an unrelated cause in January.

Moosewaypayo’s family said they just celebrated what would have been his birthday, adding that the loss still feels fresh.

“I want to be strong, but this puts me to my knees,” Henry’s father, Wayne, wrote in his statement, describing how he stayed by his son’s side until he took his last breath.

Sandra Henry described her son as a “loving, caring, gentle man” who spent as much time with his eight-year-old daughter as he could.

Part of the widespread tragedy includes Constant’s life circumstances, defence lawyer Kevin Hill told court. He said Constant was raised amid poverty, substance abuse and violence, which continued during his life on the street, making him susceptible to crime.

“I accept you’re a product of your upbringing,” Danyliuk told Constant, reminding him that it’s an explanation, not an excuse, for his behaviour.

He spoke broadly about the need to address these underlying causes because judges can’t “fix this problem.”

Constant didn’t make a statement to the court and has provided no explanation for his attacks. The Crown indicated he may have been drinking on the night of the stabbings, and Hill said his client drank “homebrew” before the jail beating.