Accused murderer’s trial delayed again
Kirk Keeping is charged with 2019 death of Chantel John in Conne River
The trial of accused murderer Kirk Keeping was postponed at the last minute Monday, the latest in a series of delays that has kept the case before the courts for years.
Keeping, 40, is charged with the first-degree murder of 28-year-old Chantel John of Miawpukek First Nation in Conne River in January 2019, and the attempted murder of one of her relatives.
Jury selection for Keeping’s month-long trial was scheduled to get underway in Grand Falls-windsor Monday, but was postponed due to legal developments in the matter. It’s been rescheduled for April 15.
He was initially scheduled to go to trial in May 2021, but fired his legal aid lawyers the day before proceedings were set to begin. He attempted to get public funding to hire private counsel but was refused by the director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Legal Aid Commission, the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal before he took his case to the Supreme Court of Canada, which dismissed his application for leave to appeal.
John’s loved ones and supporters have expressed frustration over the repeated legal delays. In April 2023, more than 50 people gathered outside the court in a demonstration of their displeasure with the postponements.
Vigils have been held across the country in honour of John — who is remembered as caring, kind, and a lover of animals and the outdoors — with some hanging red dresses, a symbol used to draw attention to the disproportionately high rates of disappearances and homicides of Indigenous women and to honour their memory.