A 19-year-old who shot and killed a 50-year-old man in Fort Smith, resulting in a three-day lockdown and manhunt in March 2022, has been sentenced to seven years for the crime.
The man was 17 at the time he committed the murder. As a result, he cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
He was sentenced in Fort Smith last week to four years’ imprisonment followed by three years’ supervision, the maximum sentence available under the act. He will be banned from owning a firearm for 20 years once released.
The man had pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder in December 2023. He killed Jordan Tourangeau, a husband and father who worked as a tradesperson and at the town’s health centre.
Charges of recklessly discharging a firearm, breaking and entering to steal a firearm, and breaking and entering while committing an indictable offence were withdrawn.
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Twenty-two people submitted community and victim impact statements detailing the effect the crime – and the loss of Tourangeau – had on them and the town.
The man released a written statement apologizing to Tourangeau’s friends and family as well as residents of Fort Smith.
According to an agreed statement of facts, the then-17-year-old had been drinking with friends and family on the evening of March 3, 2022.
Early the next morning, he broke into the garage of a home where he stole a shotgun. He then broke into another garage at around 1:40am. Tourangeau was inside.
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He shot Tourangeau, who collapsed and died from gunshot wounds to his lower chest and upper abdomen.
The man then broke into a GNWT Department of Lands office, where he took three shotguns, ammunition and vehicle keys.
At around 2:30am, while driving the stolen vehicle, he fired several shots at a home on Tamarack Crescent, one of which lodged in the wall next to the bed in a child’s bedroom. Two adults and two children were in the home at the time but no one was injured.
The man drove the vehicle out of town toward Fort Fitzgerald, stopping several times. He returned to Fort Smith at around 5am, where he abandoned the vehicle, shotguns and ammunition.
Following a three-day police operation, officers found the man on March 6 hiding in a trailer on a property near the abandoned vehicle.
RCMP arrested the man and recovered the shotguns stolen from the government building. The murder weapon, however, has not been recovered.
