The 78-year-old man who committed the 2020 manslaughter of his Brownsburg-Chatham neighbor by shooting her with a 12-gauge gun was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison.
• Also read: Manslaughter in Brownsburg-Chatham: The prosecutor's office is dissatisfied with the verdict and is requesting a new trial for the man who shot his neighbor
More than three years after the events, Howard Charles Kirby finally received his sentence at the Saint-Jérôme courthouse. If you take into account the preventive detention that the septuagenarian has already served, he now has a little more than seven years left behind bars.
Photo from a video submitted as evidence
Howard Charles Kirby during his interrogation by Sûreté du Québec investigators in October 2020.
“Near-murder”
At the end of a lengthy verdict, the judge stressed that the circumstances of this crime were particularly shocking and that although he had been found guilty of manslaughter, it was a “near-murder”.
This sentence corresponds to the proposal of Mr. Steve D. Fontaine of the Crown, who asked the judge for a sentence of between 12 and 15 years.
The defense, represented by Me Maxime Chevalier, requested a lighter sentence of eight years due to his older age.
However, the judge made it clear that the fact that Kirby was 78 was not considered a mitigating factor.
However, his low risk of repeated violence and the provocation he would have suffered from his neighbor were taken into account by the judge.
The aggravating factors cited by the court are more numerous, such as the victim's vulnerability, the fact that she was not armed, the video showing that Kirby waited until he had a “clear shot” and that he shot her when she was in shot in the back, tried to run away and didn't have a license for his firearm. The profound impact of her mother's death on Bonnie-Lyn Finnigan's five children was also a significant factor in the sentencing.
Photo courtesy of the victim's family
Bonnie-Lyn Finnigan, here surrounded by three of her five children. On the left is her daughter Kelly Flynn and on the right is her daughters Crystal Finnigan and Katie Flynn.
On appeal
In December, after a lengthy trial, Kirby was acquitted of the premeditated murder of his neighbor on October 14, 2020. Instead, the jury retained the manslaughter charge. Dissatisfied with the verdict, the Crown has already indicated it will appeal.
The septuagenarian and the 62-year-old woman had been arguing for several years over an insignificant land demarcation.
“I broke down,” Kirby said during his interrogation before Sûreté du Québec police officers, in which he admitted committing the crime.
He was hit by a volley from a 12-caliber weapon, causing 140 holes in his body.
Surveillance cameras installed by the victim captured the entire scene.
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