Pair sentenced in ‘cowardly’ shooting death

Gang members shot man in back and beat him in 2022, court told

Cody Tait wasn’t the target of a gang mission when a group chased him down, shot him in the back and beat him on the Beardy’s and Okemasis Cree Nation.

Instead, Robbie Brent Cameron, 30, wanted revenge on a woman named Trinity Scott for a previous shooting, according to an agreed statement of facts presented Thursday in Saskatoon Court of King’s Bench.

Court heard Cameron was driving around the community north of Saskatoon on March 27, 2022, looking for Scott. He sent a photo of four other gang members who were with him in the vehicle. The facts state two men, Dana Andrew Morningchild and Scotty Lee Jimmy, were holding guns in the photo.

When Cameron saw Scott with Tait at a fundraiser later that day, he, Morningchild and Jimmy followed them to a home and chased them inside.

A shot was fired, hitting Tait, 22, in the back as he tried to run away.

The facts state neither Morningchild nor Cameron fired the gun. Along with two others, they punched and kicked Tait after he collapsed four houses away, weak from the gunshot wound, before someone called police.

Jimmy, 22, remains before the court, charged with second-degree murder.

On Thursday, Cameron, who was charged with first-degree murder, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He received the mandatory life sentence with no eligibility for parole for 11 years.

Morningchild, 31, was charged with second-degree murder. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Both sentences were joint submissions between Crown prosecutor Andrew Clements and defence lawyers James Streeton and Shea Neudorf.

Outlining his client’s life, Streeton said Cameron has seven children who live with his mother in Saskatoon. He was exposed to violence and drugs as a child, and joined a gang while serving a penitentiary sentence in 2018. In 2021, his brother was beaten to death.

Streeton said Cameron couldn’t name one positive influence in his life, but he doesn’t blame anyone but himself for his circumstances.

Representing Morningchild, Neudorf said her client grew up in extreme poverty and moved to Saskatoon, where he started living with gang members.

He accepts responsibility for his role and wants to start a landscaping business when he gets out of prison, Neudorf said.

“You will never see me in this court after this,” Morningchild said, apologizing to Tait’s mother, Crystal, who was in the courtroom.

“I feel guilt, anger, confused but mostly loneliness,” Crystal Tait wrote in her victim impact statement. Her oldest son, who loved fishing and hunting, must have felt so scared as he died alone on the side of a road, she wrote.

Justice Richard Danyliuk acknowledged her grief, lamenting how Tait was killed for no reason.

“This was no better than a callous, cowardly, criminal act,” he told Morningchild and Cameron.

“I hope you both feel guilty, because you should. I hope you both feel responsible, because you are.”