Noteworthy legal cases in Calgary and area from Oct. 13 to 16, 2026

• Calgary preacher convicted on retrial of causing a disturbance at Reading with Royalty drag even
• Two-day sentencing date scheduled in 2027 for killers convicted
• Lawyer asks for delay in setting trial date for Calgary police officer facing two charges of second-degree murder
• Second suspect in death of Chestermere allegedly poisoned six years ago granted bail pending trial
• Alberta man found in breach of house arrest over bad calculation

Months after Calgarian Christopher Stevenson went missing, the former girlfriend of murder suspect Shaun Folk told police she took part in his forced fentanyl death.

But Kenedee Taylor told a Calgary jury on Friday she has no recollection of the events of Aug. 24, 2023, when Stevenson was allegedly slain in a downtown apartment suite.

And Taylor also indicated she doesn’t recall the details of her July 10, 2024, interview with Calgary police Det. Ken Carriere, in which she said she helped administer a deadly “hot shot” of fentanyl to the missing city resident.

Taylor repeatedly told Crown prosecutor Katherine Love “that’s what it says” when she had passages put to her from her police interview.

Among those was a description of events which allegedly occurred in the 6th Avenue S.E. condo unit she shared with Folk at the time.

Folk is on trial for second-degree murder in the death of Stevenson, which the Crown says was triggered by an unpaid debt. His co-accused, Ali Ex-Sayed, faces a charge of being an accessory after the fact for allegedly assisting in incinerating the victim’s body in a cement burn barrel on a rural property outside Calgary.

Taylor, who earlier pleaded guilty for her role in Stevenson’s death, was repeatedly asked by Love about her statement to police and the facts she agreed to to support her plea.

In her opening address to jurors at the beginning of the trial, co-prosecutor Donna Spaner indicated she expected jurors would hear evidence from Taylor about the events in their apartment in the early morning hours of Aug. 24, 2023.

But when the confessed killer took the witness stand she said she was a heavy user of fentanyl at the time video evidence showed Stevenson arriving at the apartment building around 4 a.m. on the morning he was last scene.

“It was probably the heart of my addiction to fentanyl,” Taylor said of the time period in question.

“It was like, a really blurry time in my life.”

Love took Taylor through the transcript of lengthy portions of her police statement, in which she described Stevenson showing up to the apartment, before she prepared a “hot shot” of fentanyl at Folk’s request to inject into the victim.

She also referred to the agreed statement of facts signed by Taylor to support her guilty plea.

“You admitted … you loaded one of Folk’s sterile needles with fentanyl, that you put a significant amount of fentanyl in the needle in that you knew Mr. Stevenson was a user and would require a lot of fentanyl to kill him,” Love said.

Before adjourning for the weekend Justice Shane Parker told jurors they can only consider her previous statements as possible evidence if Taylor acknowledges their truth.

Her testimony resumes on Monday.

The anti-drag protest conducted by a Calgary preacher at a library Reading with Royalty event constituted an unlawful act, a judge ruled Friday, convicting Derek Reimer on charges of mischief and causing a disturbance.

Justice Karim Jivraj found Reimer’s conduct on Feb. 25, 2023, at the Seton library in southeast Calgary amounted to more than a legal protest of a public event.

The Calgary Court of Justice judge noted Reimer was heard to be shouting loudly as he interrupted an event where drag kings and queens read stories to children at the library.

“Mr. Reimer entered the room with a GoPro camera affixed to his chest expressing homophobic slurs and religious jargon ‘at very loud volumes,’ ” Jivraj said.

“Despite demands for him to leave, determined and focused, Mr. Reimer made his way to the front of the room while continuing to shout.”

Jivraj said he accepted the testimony library experience facilitator Robyn Grey that “some of the attendees broke down in tears, some left the room and that some children, including toddlers, seated onthe rug by the glass wall along Mr. Reimer’s path had to be moved out of the way.

“A sad but telling example of the fear and disruption created in the room by Mr. Reimer was that of a young boy that Ms. Grey said she witnessed ‘grab a younger sibling from the carpeted area,’ presumably out of fear for his safety.”

Jivraj rejected arguments by defence counsel Alain Hepner that despite the “unpopular or objectionable nature” of his client’s message, his conduct did not amount to criminal behaviour.

The judge said Reimer’s conduct amounted to more than expressing his displeasure with the events being held.

“Several Crown witnesses described the scene inside and outside of the programming room as chaotic which, in my view, is tantamount to a disruption of the tranquility of those using the area in question.”

The judge noted Reimer’s conduct was coordinated with two other protesters who also disrupted the programming.

“Mr. Reimer’s actions were intentional, and carried out with a single objective, i.e. to disrupt the Reading with Royalty program. The disruption appears to have been a planned and coordinated effort between Mr. Reimer, the female in the blue jacket and the man in the green camouflage shirt.”

At Hepner’s request, sentencing submissions by himself and Crown prosecutor Matt Dalidowicz were adjourned to a later date.

A sentencing date will be set next week.

Two men convicted last May of murder in the fatal shooting east of Calgary of a Rocky View County worker will face a two-day sentencing hearing early next year.

Defence counsel Rebecca Snukal appeared in Calgary Court of King’s Bench on Friday to set a sentencing hearing beginning on Jan. 21, for killers Elijah Blake Strawberry and Arthur Wayne Penner.

The two men were convicted by a Calgary jury last May 30, of second-degree murder in the killing of 45-year-old Colin Hough.

Hough, a Rocky View County employee, had slowed down to investigate a burning vehicle on the side of the roadway at the intersection of Range Road 282 and Township Road 250 on Aug. 6, 2024, when he was fatally shot.

Strawberry, 30, and Penner, 38, were also convicted on two charges each of armed robbery in connection with the theft of Hough’s work truck after the shooting and the attempt to steal Fortis Alberta worker Matthew Andres’ company pickup after he was shot in the arm.

They had also faced a fourth charge of attempted murder in the shooting of Andres, but Justice Shane Parker agreed with Snukal and Penner’s lawyer, Alexandra Seaman, that there was insufficient evidence to support that charge.

It was Crown prosecutor Photini Papadatou’s theory Strawberry had shot Andres while Penner torched the stolen vehicle they had arrived in shortly before noon on Aug. 6, 2024, which had a flat tire.

But Parker agreed with the defence lawyers that even with a finding the two offenders were at the scene, there was no evidence Penner had knowledge Andres would be shot, or Strawberry intended his death.

Both Strawberry and Penner will face automatic life sentences for the murder of Hough. It will be up to Parker to determine when they can seek parole, a period between 10 and 25 years.

They remain in custody pending sentencing.

The lawyer for a Calgary police officer facing two counts of murder in connection with a low-speed chase told court Friday he’s not quite ready to set a trial date.

Defence counsel Don MacLeod asked Justice Glen Poelman that he and Crown prosecutor Jeff Rudiak are still in discussions to find dates for Const. Craig Stothard’s trial for second-degree murder.

“We are agreed, subject to your approval to put the matter over two weeks to Oct. 30, to enable us to discuss scheduling,” MacLeod told the Calgary Court of King’s Bench judge.

MacLeod said Rudiak, a prosecutor out of Edmonton, has been assigned because Calgary Crowns would be in conflict to handle the case.

Stothard was ordered last August to stand trial in connection with a double-fatality shooting by Justice Mark Mastel at the conclusion of a preliminary inquiry in Calgary Court of Justice.

Stothard, 52, faces two charges of second-degree murder in the deaths of Levon Fox and Wesley Davidson.

Fox, 39, and Davidson, 46, were fatally shot in May. 29, 2023, following a low-speed chase on Memorial Drive.

The officer’s preliminary inquiry was scheduled for two weeks but wrapped up Aug. 18, following six days of evidence. At MacLeod’s request Mastel imposed a publication ban on evidence presented by the Crown during the hearing.

Last July 15, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team announced charges had been laid, more than two years after the deadly incident.

Stothard appeared in Calgary Court of King’s Bench prior to the ASIRT announcement and was granted his release on conditions before the allegations were made public.

He is on leave from the Calgary Police Service and it is unknown if the time away is paid or unpaid.

Stothard remains on bail and was not required to attend court on Friday.

The second of two men charged this past summer with murder in the poisoning death of a Chestermere teen six years ago has been granted bail.

Defence counsel Ian McKay appeared before Calgary Court of King’s Bench Justice Nancy Dilts on Thursday to indicate the Crown has consented to Harmanjot Chumber’s release on strict conditions.

Among the rules Chumber must abide by ahead of his trial a year from now is 24-hour house arrest and the wearing of an ankle monitoring device.

Chumber’s release comes two weeks after a co-accused, Dalvir Sidhu, was also granted bail pending their trial with a third accused on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Mounties announced in July they had charged Chumber and Sidhu in connection with the April 6, 2020, death of 18-year-old Sahil Grewal.

Grewal died three days after an April 3, 2020, incident in which he allegedly ingested cough syrup laced with fentanyl.

Mohit Sandhu was arrested in July 2025 and charged in connection with Grewal’s death and the attempted murder of Jaskarat Singh Sidhu on the same date.

He remains in custody pending the beginning of the trio’s Calgary Court of King’s Bench jury trial set to begin Oct. 12, 2027.

The alleged target of the attempted murder is himself serving a life sentence for two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the fatal shootings of two men outside a northeast Calgary bar exactly a year to the date before Grewal consumed the deadly concoction.

At the time Jaskarat Sidhu had yet to be charged with the April 3, 2019, fatal shootings of Jasdeep Singh and Japneet Mahli.

He and Prabhjyot Bhatti were convicted in December 2024 of two counts each of first-degree murder in the ambush killings outside the Mazaj Restaurant and Lounge off Barlow Trail N.E.

Bad mathematical skills are no excuse for breaching a conditional sentence order, a Calgary judge has ruled.

In a written decision posted online, Justice Allan Fradsham found Jason Buckley’s excuse for violating his house arrest order didn’t add up.

Buckley breached his six-month, 24/7 curfew last June 14, when he went bathing in a local swimming spot in Lundbreck Falls, in southern Alberta.

At the time, Buckley was subject to a six-month house arrest as part of an 18-month conditional sentence order to be served in the community, which was imposed on Jan. 8.

But Buckley told court he erroneously thought the six months was up because there are six months from January to June.

“He mistakenly thought that the house arrest condition expired on June 8, 2026,” Fradsham noted.

“He made that mistake thinking January being the first month of the year, and June being the sixth month of the year, then the six months in which the house arrest condition was effective expired at the end of June 8,” the Calgary Court of Justice judge wrote.

“He said he counted out the six months by counting ‘January’ as being the first month. He said that he was so settled in that view that on June 8 he held a party celebrating the end of the house arrest condition.”

While Buckley acknowledged his error he said the miscalculation was “his honest belief at the time,” Fradsham said.

The judge accepted Buckley’s explanation that he believed his house arrest had concluded, but that didn’t exonerate him from a finding he breached the conditional sentence.

Fradsham said since a finding of a breach of such an order doesn’t amount to a criminal conviction, Crown prosecutor Greg Whiteside wasn’t required to prove Buckley intended the consequences of his actions.

The judge said while he understood how the Alberta resident erred in concluding he had completed the house arrest portion of his sentence “I cannot conclude that his calculation method was sensible or based on good sense.

“The fact that his mistake was ‘honest’ did not, given how he made it, clothe it with the characteristic of being ‘reasonable.’ His honest but mistaken belief, in these circumstances, did not afford Mr. Buckley a reasonable excuse for breaching the conditional sentence order.”

Fradsham’s written decision did not include any potential sanction, which can range from no action to collapsing the community term and ordering it be served in custody, Buckley was handed for the breach.

Catch up with the day’s headlines, curated by our editors and delivered to your email inbox at lunchtime on every business day. Sign up now for the Calgary Herald Noon News Roundup.