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Penticton  

Former local guilty in killing

A man convicted and sentenced in April to five years in prison for a Penticton armed robbery has now been found guilty of manslaughter for the killing of a man in Abbotsford.

Shayne McGenn, a 35-year-old former Penticton resident, was found guilty of manslaughter Monday by a judge in Abbotsford, a lesser charge than the second-degree murder the Crown was trying to prove.

His co-accused girlfriend, Sarah McGather, was found not guilty of accessory after the fact.

Justice Martha Devlin ruled that McGenn killed his roommate, David Delaney, on Feb. 7, 2016 by strangling him with a belt during a fight between the pair. McGenn had admitting to the killing but claimed it was done in self defence.

The victim previously had a common law relationship with McGenn's mother in Penticton. The pair had split amicably and Delaney and McGenn stayed friends.

In Spring 2015 McGenn left Penticton to work with Delaney at a restaurant in Abbotsford. The pair lived together, along with McGenn’s girlfriend, Sarah Sather, and child. The judge found that the dispute arose between the two men months after McGenn had been fired from the restaurant for drug use, and McGenn demanded the use of Delaney’s car to go buy drugs.

McGenn told an undercover police officer posing as his cellmate that he hit Delaney with a frying pan before “finishing him off” with his belt.

Justice Devlin found that level of violence, and given the fact that Delaney was a thin 63 year old, meant McGenn was not acting in self defence.

The Crown alleged Sather helped McGenn clean-up after the homicide, as Delaney’s body was not found until weeks after — but Justice Devlin found the Crown failed to prove so beyond a reasonable doubt.

It was the Abbotsford homicide investigation that actually ended up leading to the Penticton robbery conviction. The armed robbery of Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy on May 22, 2014 had gone completely unsolved until DNA gathered from McGenn during the homicide investigation matched with DNA found on a hat and bandana at the crime scene of the robbery.

McGenn, who was sentenced to five years for the robbery, has not been sentenced for the count of manslaughter yet.



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