Although a Terror Squad member intentionally shot Dylan Phillips during a drug robbery, she did not necessarily do it on behalf of her gang, a Saskatoon judge ruled.
Justice Shawn Smith said he was left with a reasonable doubt that the botched robbery on Oct. 14, 2016 was a Terror Squad “mission” and found Shaylin Sutherland-Kayseas guilty of second-degree murder instead of first-degree murder.
Smith said Sutherland-Kayseas took a loaded gun into Phillips’s home in the 1400 block of Avenue G North and intentionally shot the 26-year-old as he moved toward her.
The now 20-year-old woman testified she was high on methamphetamine and accidentally fired the gun because Phillips lunged at her weapon. Smith rejected her version of events, thus ruling out the possibility of a manslaughter conviction as argued by her defence team.
“Her testimony was a tour de force of prevarication, equivocation, with a considerable helping of fabrication,” Smith said in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench on Friday.
Shaylin Sutherland-Kayseas is on trial at Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench, charged with the first-degree murder of Dylan Phillips on Oct. 14, 2016.
He pointed to statements Sutherland-Kayseas made that were inconsistent with an accidental shooting, including a recorded phone call from jail where she said she “laid someone down” because they were going after her cousin.
She later told a police officer that she shot Phillips, who she’d never met, because he was trying to attack her and her family.
Clothing found in the trunk of Shaylin Sutherland-Kayseas’s car. She is on trial for the first-degree murder of 26-year-old Dylan Phillips.Second-degree murder can be elevated to first-degree murder if it was done for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a criminal organization.
The Crown argued Sutherland-Kayseas and two others were “taxing” Phillips — a non-gang member — for selling drugs on Terror Squad territory, and that the gang “mission” went awry, Smith noted. Evidence pointing to her promotion within the gang and her celebration of gang life connect the crime to the gang, the Crown said.
Sutherland-Kayseas testified she was not acting on behalf of the Terror Squad and wanted to get drugs and cash for herself.
Obituary photo of Dylan Edward Robert Phillips.
“I think that was clear throughout (Smith’s) decision, that while the Crown had little pieces and certainly there was an admission that Shaylin was a member of the Terror Squad, there was nothing that linked this shooting with the Terror Squad itself, and that’s what’s required,” defence lawyer Jessie Buydens said outside court.
She indicated the defence is seeking the minimum parole ineligibility for second-degree murder, which is 10 years. The conviction carries a mandatory life sentence with a parole ineligibility ranging from 10 to 25 years.
A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 13 as the defence awaits a Gladue report, which canvasses the effects of colonialization on Indigenous offenders before they are sentenced. Prosecutor Melodi Kujawa said the Crown will formulate a desired sentence after reading that report.
Phillips’s family was in court but did not provide a comment on the decision. Kujawa said they appeared to be prepared for, and ultimately okay with, the second-degree murder conviction.
“Even if she does get out on parole … The key element for the Crown in this case is that (Sutherland-Kayseas) will be managed by the state until she dies,” Kujawa pointed out.