B.C.’s Court of Appeal has changed a conviction of first-degree murder for one of second-degree for a man convicted in the February 2019 slaying of a Kamloops man.
The decision remitting Hugh Alexander McIntosh’s case back to B.C. Supreme Court for sentencing said two men entered a townhouse occupied by Kelly Callfas and Jason Glover.
The unanimous decision of the three-judge panel said the men were seeking information about lost drug-related proceeds.
One of the men shot Glover in the back of the head and then shot Callfas six times, twice in the head, Justice Gregory Fitch wrote in the decision.
“Remarkably, Callfas survived. She was the Crown’s key witness at trial. Unfortunately, Glover did not,” the ruling said.
McIntosh was armed with a concealed gun when he and an accomplice, Gordie Braaten, showed up at a Brocklehurst apartment on Feb. 15, 2019.
The 2021 B.C. Supreme Court trial heard Callfas was a drug dealer who owed money to Braaten. McIntosh was described at trial as “an enforcer.”
“This is not, in any circumstance, a crime of passion,” Crown prosecutor Sarah Firestone said Monday during sentencing submissions.
“Rather, it is remarkable for its dispassion.”
Justice Dev Dley sentenced McIntosh to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years — the automatic sentence for a first-degree murder conviction — and 12 years for attempted murder. The two sentences were to run concurrent to one another.
Glover's murder took place during a deadly gang war that saw four people killed in Kamloops in a five-month span.
Braaten pleaded guilty in March to a manslaughter charge for his part in Glover’s death. He was sentenced to seven years in a federal prison.
Fitch said Callfas identified McIntosh and that DNA and video evidence put him in Kamloops at the time of the shooting.
However, said Fitch, the evidence did not reasonably support the conviction for first-degree murder.
With files from Tim Petruk
