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Kelowna  

Jail for shooting face

Nicholas Johansen

A man who shot another man in the face with a sawed-off shotgun will serve another 114 days in jail, after he was sentenced to 22 months in jail on Wednesday.

Police rushed to West Kelowna's Pineridge Estates trailer park in the early morning hours of Nov. 6, 2016 after several people reported someone had been shot, later arresting 36-year-old Jeremy Matherly.

In court Wednesday, Crown prosecutor Murray Kaay said the man who had been shot, Josh Prozeller, had an altercation with a friend of Matherly, Bryce Stanton-Collins, earlier that night.

“Mr. Stanton-Collins was in a car outside trailer number 14,” Kaay said, relaying a witness' report to police. “Mr. Prozeller crept up to the car, smashed the window with a pole and started beating up Mr. Stanton-Collins.”

Prozeller later told police that he was looking to collect on a debt.

Stanton-Collins managed to get away, and Prozeller left the area.

Matherly remained on the deck of trailer 14, his elderly grandmother's home, with several of his friends through the early morning. Another friend of Matherly, as well as Prozeller, later told police they had been doing drugs.

Kaay said several hours later, Prozeller came back to the trailer park, this time with a mask on. Stanton-Collins had retrieved a sawed-off shot gun following the first altercation and it was sitting on the trailer's deck.

When Prozeller showed back up, Matherly grabbed the shotgun and fired bird shot at Prozeller. Injured, Prozeller fled the scene and was taken to the hospital by his sister, who lived in the trailer park.

He was later transferred to Vancouver General Hospital for treatment, but lost his right eye.

During their investigation, a police services dog found the loaded sawed-off shotgun about 150 feet from the trailer, partially buried in some pine needles.

Several weeks later, Matherly was at the Emmanuel Church in West Kelowna which shelters homeless people, and spoke with employees there.

“He made admissions to the effect that he had been involved in an altercation with armed drug dealers and that he was protecting a friend and a result he had shot a man with a shotgun, which he disposed of,” said Kaay.

As a result, Matherly was arrested on Dec. 15, and has remained in custody since.

While Matherly was originally charged with attempted murder, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated assault in September.

While the Crown had asked for a two-year sentence, Justice Lisa Wyatt felt a 22-month sentence was appropriate, along with two years of probation. 

Matherly was given presentence custody credit at 1.5 times actual time served, resulting in 546 days of credit and will serve an additional 114 days in jail.



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