麻豆视频

Kyle Braeden Furness, the man who pled guilty to the June 20 murder of Jimmy Ray Wiebe, was sentenced to life in prison with a parole ineligibility period of 12 years yesterday.

Furness, 21, killed 50-year-old Wiebe as the latter was working an overnight shift at Yorkton's Shell gas station on Smith Street this summer. Furness was charged with first-degree murder four days later and pled guilty to murder in the second degree on November 4.

Sentencing submissions from the Crown and defense at the Yorkton Court of Queen's Bench on December 7 made many details of the murder public for the first time.

It is now known that Furness shot Wiebe in the head with a modified 22-calibre pistol almost immediately after entering the store. Once Wiebe was on the ground, Furness walked around the counter and shot him again in the head. Furness then fled the store with two cash drawers and a small quantity of cigarettes.

Footage of the murder from three security cameras was shown to the court, which included members of Wiebe's family.

A portion of footage from Furness's three-hour police interview was also shown. In it, Furness admits to the murder, stating that he was motivated to rob the store by his morphine addiction.

He didn't want to enter the store, states Furness in the video, but the "drugs took over."

Furness is heard saying that he did not plan to kill Wiebe, but "got scared" when he saw the worker reaching for a phone behind the counter. He fired the second shot when he saw Wiebe moving on the floor.

"I didn't want him to grab me."

Furness breaks down crying when the interviewer shows him a video of his mother urging him to "come clean."

"I wish I never did it. I wish I never took his life. I probably should have did it to myself," says Furness in the video.

Furness became a person of interest to police shortly after the murder based on statements made by people close to him, revealed prosecutor Daryl Bode. Friends and family members told police they had seen Furness showing off a pistol with a sawed-off barrel in the days before the murder and had seen him dressed that night in clothes very similar to those worn by the suspect.

Second-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison with a parole ineligibility period between 10 and 25 years.

The prosecution asked for an ineligibility period of 14 to 17 years, while Yorkton Legal Aid defense attorney Richard Yaholnitsky called for 10 to 12 years.

Justice J.E. McMurtry weighed the brutality of the crime against Furness's apparent remorse and decided on an ineligibility period of 12 years.

Furness also received a concurrent six-month sentence for a separate break & enter committed on June 15.

More details on the sentencing hearing will be printed in the December 14 edition of Yorkton This Week.