ANGER AND GRIEF
Kathy Cardinal, partner of Tyler Applegate, who was fatally shot in July 2017, is one of the family members upset over manslaughter charges in his death.
Whenever Starla Sippola finds herself reaching for the phone to call her brother, she has to stop herself.
She knows Tyler Applegate will never pick up the phone. He will never again fix her car, bring her late-night snacks or stand up for her when she feels bullied.
“The biggest thing that I’m starting to miss now that he’s gone longer is just how dependable he was,” Sippola says. “It did not matter what I needed, he always gave it to me, he always did it for me. I literally could call him at three o’clock in the morning and he would bring me a slush just because I wanted a slush at three o’clock in the morning.”
Applegate was shot in the yard of his home in Saskatoon’s Westview neighbourhood on a Saturday morning last July. The 27-year-old was taken to hospital, where he died of his injuries nearly three weeks later, on Aug. 10, 2017. He was Saskatoon’s third homicide victim that year.
Sippola said she was in denial for the 20 days she and her family spent gathered around Applegate’s bedside. He had been shot in the abdomen and the smell in his room worsened every day as his insides rotted, but she still couldn’t believe he would die, she said.
“I still believed that Tyler was ultimately Hercules, that nothing could take him down. I don’t think I really believed that it was anywhere near the end.”
Applegate’s family and police say they don’t believe he knew the person who shot him. Family members say he was shot after confronting a man who had been urinating on his fence.
This month, nearly nine months after his death, two men were charged with manslaughter and accessory after the fact to discharging a firearm while being reckless to the life or safety of another person.
One of the men, Dustin Grainger, made his first appearance in Saskatoon provincial court this week, appearing via video connection from the Saskatchewan Penitentiary, where he is serving time on another charge. A court date for the second man, Dylan Chabot Tyacke, has not yet been set.
City police said both men were arrested and charged while serving time in different locations outside Saskatoon.
Sippola said she’s glad charges have finally been laid — she had started to lose hope they ever would be — but she’s frustrated the men are not facing harsher charges.
“After all this time of us waiting for justice, justice is not even going to be served because they’re going on manslaughter charges, rather than first-degree or second-degree murder,” she said from her home Tuesday, hours after she and other members of Applegate’s family watched Grainger’s brief court appearance.
“What kind of justice is that? That’s not justice.”
Applegate was a mechanic who was working for an auto wrecker when he died. He left behind five children between the ages of five and 11.
“He was the bestest daddy,” said his seven-year-old daughter, Lora Cardinal, who was among the family members gathered at Sippola’s home on Tuesday.
Applegate and his partner, Kathy Cardinal, had been together since they were 12 years old. His family described him as a loving partner and a strict but playful parent who took great pleasure in teasing his kids.
Cardinal said it’s been tough raising her children without Applegate. He always reminded the kids to listen to their mother, and without him, her kids have been rebelling, she said.
Her 11-year-old daughter has been taking Applegate’s death particularly hard and was angry about how long the police investigation was taking, she added. The girl told her she wanted to speak with police investigators to ask them what the hold up was.
“To this day, she’s really angry. We can’t even do anything without her pushing away from everybody,” Cardinal said.
Police say the investigation into Applegate’s death is ongoing.
Grainger is expected to appear in Saskatoon provincial court again on May 22.