Yukon court hears appeal of Whitehorse man convicted in 2015 murder of Christopher Brisson

A panel of Yukon appeal court judges heard arguments Thursday over the case of a Whitehorse man convicted of second-degree murder in 2018 for fatally shooting his crack cocaine dealer during a botched robbery. 

Darryl Sheepway was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 13 years following a judge-alone trial in the Yukon Supreme Court four years ago for the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Christopher Brisson in 2015. 

He's appealing his conviction and seeking a new trial.

Sheepway's lawyer, Vincent Larochelle, told the appeal court that the case was illustrative of "how fragile" life can be — Sheepway was married with children, "despised" violence, had worked as a corrections officer at the Whitehorse jail and was dedicated to raising sled dogs and skijoring.

However, in the "greatest irony," he began attending Narcotics Anonymous to help manage his cannabis use, through which he met someone who introduced him to crack cocaine. 

"And really, it all went downhill from that first puff of crack quite quickly," Larochelle said. 

Sheepway didn't have intent, lawyer argues

Sheepway had been using crack for about three months when his life began to unravel in August 2015.

After a fight with his wife, who took away his credit and debit cards, Sheepway, desperate for crack and feeling suicidal, met with Brisson twice. The first time, when Brisson fronted him a $50 baggie, and a second, when Sheepway lured Brisson out to a gravel pit on McLean Lake Road under the guise of purchasing more. 

When Brisson arrived in his truck, Sheepway, sitting in his own vehicle, pulled out a shotgun and attempted to rob him, leading to a brief struggle over the gun.

Brisson tried to drive away.

Sheepway fired two shots into the back of Brisson's truck, one of which fatally struck him. 

Brisson was able to put his truck in reverse and drive a short distance before crashing into the bush and being ejected from the vehicle.

Sheepway searched Brisson's body and took some crack and cash before leaving. He later returned to clean up the scene, picking up more crack that was on the ground and dumping Brisson's body at Miles Canyon before meeting with his wife again. 

Larochelle told the appeal court that the trial judge hadn't properly considered the impact crack withdrawal had on Sheepway's state of mind leading up to the shooting, instead placing too much emphasis on his relatively minimal crack consumption.

Hand-in-hand with that, Larochelle claimed, was a failure to evaluate Sheepway's intent when firing the gun.

Intent is what separates second-degree murder from the lesser charge of manslaughter. 

Sheepway, Larochelle said, testified during his trial that he'd been aiming at the metal on the back of of the truck, not Brisson — he was only thinking about getting drugs, not harming Brisson.

Larochelle also noted that one of the two psychiatrists who interviewed Sheepway in the lead-up to his trial testified that he'd been in an "abnormal" and "hyperreactive" mindset at the time of the shooting due to crack withdrawal.

Sheepway showed high-functioning thinking: Crown 

Crown Melissa McKay, however, accused Larochelle of using facts in a "select and piecemeal fashion" to paint a portrait of Sheepway that "is at best a sketch." 

While there was no doubt crack altered the course of his life, McKay pointed out that Sheepway, by his own admission, was a man who was "quite functional" when using crack — someone who could keep up with his daily responsibilities and hobbies, and occasionally chose to stop consuming crack and stay in withdrawal when he needed to get certain tasks done.

There was no reason, she argued, to separate that afternoon from the rest of the time as "abnormal." 
 
Immediately after Brisson's death, Sheepway had the "wherewithal" to turn off Brisson's truck, kick his body to make sure he was dead and then search it for crack, McKay said.

He was also capable of thinking to come back to clean up the scene, dump Brisson's body and wash the blood off his truck before meeting with his wife. 

Instead of showing "abnormal" or impaired thinking, McKay argued, Sheepway, an experienced marksman who could hit clay pigeons from a distance of 50 metres, acted deliberately when he fired his gun at Brisson's truck from just two metres away, taking the time to manually reload and fire a second shot to prevent him from getting away. 

McKay also dismissed written arguments from Larochelle disputing ballistic and psychiatric evidence as attempts to rehash arguments that were unsuccessful at trial, and said that overall, the judge had shown clear logic and reasons in his written decision explaining why he'd found Sheepway guilty.

The appeal court reserved its decision.