Man sentenced to life in prison for part in gang-related shooting death in 2015

Guns, gangs and bad blood were the catalysts for Troy Cecil Napope’s murder.

In Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench this week, Napope’s killer, Braidy Chase Vermette, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 20 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

The Crown and defence jointly submitted the 20-year parole ineligibility as part of a plea deal. Vermette, 29, was originally charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Napope on May 28, 2015.

Court heard Vermette and Napope were members of opposing gangs. Vermette used to belong to Napope’s gang — the Terror Squad — before forming his own gang.

On the night of the murder, Vermette’s friend, Skyler Preston Bird, met up with Vermette after seeing Napope at a house party.

“Skyler told him that Troy was at the party and had been driving around all night saying that he was going to kill Braidy,” Crown prosecutor John Morrall confirmed on Thursday.

Bird and Vermette returned to the party and found Napope sitting in his car with a shotgun across his lap. Vermette shot him in the leg and forced him into the back seat while Bird drove them west of Prince Albert.

Napope repeatedly apologized before Vermette shot him in the head multiple times, Morrall said.

The men later burned Napope’s car. The 24-year-old was reported missing the next month; his remains were found in a slough the following spring.

Vermette also received a seven-year concurrent sentence for escaping from the Prince Albert jail, where he was being held on the murder charge, in March 2016. Two men attacked prison guards who were taking Vermette to the hospital for a self-inflicted stab wound — a plan Vermette concocted while in custody. He was captured a week later.

Bird, 30, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last May and was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 10 years.