Teen gets three years for fatal Kitchener knife attack

‘I can’t understand how anyone could do something so evil’

KITCHENER — It started with an argument and a punch and ended with a stab wound to the heart and a teen charged with murder.

The killer, 17 at the time of the attack on Aug. 31, 2017, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and on Monday was handed a three-year sentence — a mix of secure custody and community supervision.

The teen had never met the victim, Andrew Savory, 27, the father of two children under three years old.

“Every day I miss him,” Susanne VanderLoo, mother of Savory’s children, told a packed courtroom Monday in a teary victim impact statement. “It’s been nine months of loneliness and constant heartache.”

Just before 11:30 p.m., the teen and a friend were waiting for a cab in a parking lot outside 286 Chandler Dr., near Ottawa Street and Westmount Road in Kitchener, when Savory walked past.

According to an agreed statement of facts read out loud by Crown prosecutor Cynthia Jennison, the friend told police Savory said to the teen, “What are you looking at?”

The teen “chirped back and that escalated things really quickly.”

Savory apparently punched the teen in the eye. The teen responded by stabbing him several times with a flick knife with a four-inch blade.

The teen’s friend jumped on Savory’s back and Savory grabbed at the friend’s neck and head-butted him. The teen and his friend then ran away.

Savory, who previously lived near where he was killed, had three knife wounds in his back and three in his chest — including one that penetrated his heart. He was pronounced dead in hospital at the stroke of midnight.

The teen, arrested at his Waterloo home shortly after the killing, was originally charged with second-degree murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter, defined as homicide with no intent to kill.

He received the maximum manslaughter sentence for a youth — three years. It was a joint submission from the Crown and defence. After credit for pretrial custody, he has another

460 days to serve in secure custody and 230 days of community supervision, similar to parole for adults.

The teen was ordered to give a DNA sample and faces a weapons ban.

The main principles of the youth criminal justice system are rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders.

Justice Craig Parry called the sentence “a reasonable resolution and a just one.” Self-defence and provocation could have been raised at trial, the judge said.

“I think what’s agreed is that Savory initiated the physical confrontation,” defence lawyer Brennan Smart said in an interview. “The response by (the teen) was excessive in the circumstances, but he never had an intention to kill.”

The teen, who has no prior record, declined to address the judge before sentencing, but Smart said his client wanted to express his sincere regret for killing Savory.

Aglowing presentence report said the teen made many positive changes in the nine months since the killing. He took counselling programs and now knows how to appropriately handle conflict.

“That is quite the transformation over a short period of time,” Parry said.

The judge offered his deepest condolences to Savory’s family and friends in the courtroom and noted the teen’s transformation isn’t much consolation to them.

He called it a “tragic and senseless death.”

“It’s a reminder for all of us that equipping one’s self with a weapon for whatever reason is usually a fool’s endeavour and one that is an invitation to tragedy.”

VanderLoo said their son, now three, has had nightmares since his father’s death. “Their fatherson bond was strong, and now that bond has been completely torn apart,” she said. “And for what? Some street credit?

“I can’t understand how anyone could do something so evil. How can someone have such little respect for another human life?”

Looking at the killer handcuffed in the prisoner’s box, VanderLoo said, “You are the prime example of what I hope my son never becomes.”