Stabbing victim’s sister fears his killer will walk free after conviction reduced
The sister of a man who was fatally stabbed by his stepson is fearful that the killer will soon be released thanks to a recent decision by the B.C. Court of Appeal.
Sue Baker Oberman is concerned that the decision by B.C.’s highest court reducing the murder conviction of Robert Arthur Vernon Reeves to manslaughter will result in the killer walking free.
The Montreal woman believes Reeves, who stabbed her brother, Brian Baker, 34 times during an unprovoked attack, is dangerous and poses a threat to public safety.
“This man should not be out on the street,” she said.
The case, which has seen a protracted path through the courts, began with Reeves being charged with the April 26, 2009 second-degree murder of Baker, 61, in the family home in Granisle, a village on Babine Lake in northern B.C.
In April 2011, a B.C. Supreme Court jury found Reeves guilty as charged and he received the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 10 years.
Two years later, in May 2013, a three-judge panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial. A second jury found Reeves guilty of second-degree murder and in 2015 he again received a life sentence with no parole eligibility for 10 years.
But the verdict was appealed again and in February, another threejudge panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the murder conviction, substituting it with a manslaughter conviction and returning the case to the B.C. Supreme Court for sentencing.
The lesser offence of manslaughter carries a maximum life sentence but generally sees an offender get a determinate jail sentence.
No date has yet been set for sentencing but due to the fact that Reeves has remained behind bars since his arrest, he’ll likely receive sufficient credit for pre-sentence custody that any sentence imposed by the judge will see him spend no further time in prison.
On the day of the slaying, Reeves got into a quarrel with his mom, Vivienne Baker, over her cooking rice in a pot with a dirty lid.
When Brian Baker told Reeves to leave his mom alone, Reeves grabbed a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed the victim.
The mom, who was married to Baker, fled the scene and called police. Cops surrounded the home and during negotiations, Reeves talked about torture he’d suffered from chips implanted in his body by the CIA or a similar organization. He claimed the paranoid delusions made him “snap.”