Man who beat father to death regrets waking up from coma

David Sura wishes he’d never woken up from his coma.

That’s what the 40-year-old Windsor man tearfully said before Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas on Friday prior to receiving an eight-year prison sentence for beating his father to death.

Months ahead of the June 2018 killing — for which Sura pleaded guilty to manslaughter after originally being charged with murder — he regained consciousness from a six-month coma brought about by brain injuries sustained in an all-terrain vehicle crash.

“I miss him. I didn’t want any of this to happen,” Sura told the court. “I just wanted to go see him because it was around Father’s Day, and it turned into this.”

Sura was arrested on June 20, 2018, after calling 911 to report he had beaten his father, Thomas Sura, 66, within an inch of his life.

Until that day, Sura had been estranged from his father, who court heard had abused Sura, his mother and his siblings. He lost his mother and one brother to suicide.

When Sura showed up at his father’s home for an unannounced visit, the older man had been drinking and was too intoxicated to recognize his son. What followed was a night of heavy drinking by both men and an argument. Sura punched and kicked his father with steel-toed boots, and left him wedged between his bed and a wall in a pool of blood.

“The offence here is extremely grave,” said the judge.

With enhanced credit for 632 days served in pre-sentence custody, Sura has approximately five years and five months left to serve.

Sura sat in the prisoner’s box and cried quietly. He used the sleeves of his grey knit pullover to wipe tears from his eyes before a court officer handed him a box of tissues. No friends or family members were in attendance.

“By all accounts, David Sura’s father, Thomas Sura Sr., was a violent and abusive alcoholic who regularly beat his wife and his sons,” said Thomas.

In January, Sura pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge but guilty to manslaughter. During that hearing, Sura’s younger brother, Thomas Sura Jr., addressed the court and described how Sura would step in to protect him from their father’s beatings.

By pleading guilty, “Mr. Sura chose to spare his family any further trauma in what can only be seen as a tragic and dysfunctional family setting,” Justice Thomas said. “Here, it seems everyone is a victim.”

The Crown and defence both sought sentences of eight to 10 years.

“It’s just a really sad situation. He has to live with the fact that he’s responsible for his father’s death,” defence lawyer Robert Dipietro told reporters outside the court. “After his brain injury, I’m hopeful he totally understands the sentence he got.”

The brain injury from the ATV crash continues to have an effect on his life, the court heard. It has affected his ability to work, and although he takes medication, he occasionally has seizures in custody. He has suffered strokes.