B.C. man who killed girlfriend in 2020 guilty of manslaughter, not murder, judge rules

Sarah Foord, 38, was reported missing by family on July 10. Her remains were later found near Fort St. John, B.C. (Handout)

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A B.C. man who stabbed his girlfriend repeatedly before transporting her body in a garbage can and burying it in a shallow grave has been found guilty of manslaughter, but not murder.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice James W. Williams wrote in his decision Tuesday that he had no difficulty concluding that John Wendell Keyler had caused Sarah Foord's death on July 7, 2020, but that the Crown had not proven his intent to kill her beyond a reasonable doubt. 

WHAT HAPPENED

According to the judge's decision, Foord and Keyler had been in a relationship for roughly 16 months at the time of the killing. They were living together in Foord's mobile home in Taylor, B.C., south of Fort St. John.

The homicide occurred in the bathroom, where Keyler stabbed Foord with a "multitool," Williams wrote. After she died, he drove to "a gas well-site" near Buick Creek, north of Fort St. John, buried her body, and threw the multitool into a nearby body of water.

Foord's family reported her missing on July 10, 2020, and the B.C. RCMP's North District Major Crime Unit soon became involved in the case. 

In an interview with Mounties on July 21, Keyler confessed to stabbing Foord and directed police to the location where her body was buried, the court decision indicates.

An autopsy concluded that Foord had been stabbed approximately 50 times, though many of the wounds were "very superficial." Two more-significant stab wounds were determined to be the cause of her death, according to Williams.

Keyler was arrested and charged with murder on July 25, 2020. He was also charged with indignity to human remains.

THE ARGUMENTS

Keyler pleaded not guilty to murder, arguing that he was "in a state of significant intoxication by alcohol and drugs," and that his drug use had caused a psychotic state, such that he didn't fully appreciate what was happening or the possible consequences.

He told the court he experienced paranoia as a result of his alleged drug-induced psychosis and believed he was going to be attacked. He said he also thought that Foord was involved in a plot to "set him up," and that he pulled her into the bathtub with him out of a belief that having her nearby would keep him safe.

Crown prosecutors argued that the nature and number of wounds inflicted on Foord suggested Keyler intended to kill her, or at least attacked her with reckless disregard for whether she would survive.

"The Crown is skeptical of the defendant's claims of mental disruption," Williams wrote in his decision.

"It takes the position that what occurred is that the defendant was angry, jealous and hostile to Ms. Foord, and he gave vent to those emotions, possibly under the disinhibiting and aggressive effects of some mild intoxication by substance."

Prosecutors also argued that Keyler was not a credible witness and that his testimony about what happened should not be trusted.

THE CONCLUSION

Williams agreed with prosecutors about Keyler's credibility, but found he couldn't entirely dismiss the accused's evidence.

"While I have significant reservations as to the truthfulness and reliability of his evidence, I am not able to point to any aspect of his evidence and be satisfied that it is untrue," the judge wrote.

"The perspective I must take, it seems to me, is to ask myself whether I reject it as being untrue or whether my skepticism is less absolute. Even though I am not satisfied that what he has said or parts of it are true, is it a situation where I should completely reject it out of hand, or is it such that I cannot say it is not capable of being true, and thus it must be assigned some partial weight in my assessment?"

Williams concluded that the latter approach was necessary, and that there was, thus, an alternative to the Crown's theory of the case that was reasonably capable of being true.

The judge cited the expert testimony of forensic psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Kolchak, who was called as a witness by the defence.

"Dr. Kolchak posited two possible scenarios that are consistent with these two theories," Williams wrote.

"In the first, there was significant psychological disruption that caused the defendant not to have the necessary appreciation of his circumstances and ability to foresee consequences. In the second, Dr. Kolchak accepted that what occurred here may have been intentional and is the result of the defendant’s anger, jealousy and animosity toward Ms. Foord and did not entail a component of psychosis. As well, Dr. Kolchak offered the opinion that this might be a situation where features of both those scenarios contributed to what happened."

Having concluded that there was a "reasonable possibility" that Keyler was experiencing drug-induced psychosis, Williams found him guilty of manslaughter, rather than murder.

The judge also found him guilty of indignity to human remains, which the defence conceded had been proven.