Kirk Keeping pleads guilty to murder
Keeping changed his plea ahead of jury trial Monday for killing Chantel John of Conne River in 2019
Instead of going to trial, Kirk Keeping pleaded guilty Monday morning to murdering Chantel John of Miawpukek First Nation in Conne River five years ago.
Keeping, age 40 and from St. Jacques, had been set for a month-long jury trial on charges of first-degree murder in connection with the death of his ex-girlfriend John, 28, as well as the attempted murder of one of her female relatives on the same day. The trial had been set to start a week ago, but was postponed at the last minute until April 15.
Instead, when the matter was called in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in Grand Falls-windsor Keeping pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of seconddegree murder and aggravated assault. He has also entered guilty pleas to charges of uttering threats and breaching a court order.
The case will be called again in court June 20 for a sentencing hearing.
A series of delays kept the matter before the courts for years. Keeping was originally scheduled for trial in May 2021, but fired his legal aid lawyers the day before it was set to begin. He attempted to get public funding to hire private counsel.
The provincial government amended its Legal Aid Act 16 years ago to allow legal aid clients who were charged with murder or manslaughter to choose a lawyer in private practice if they preferred. The province removed that option in 2018, but the director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Legal Aid Commission has the power to make an exception in certain circumstances.
The commission denied Keeping’s application before he took it to the supreme court and then the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal; they did the same.
Keeping applied to the Supreme Court of Canada for permission to appeal his case there, but the court dismissed his application.