A man in Inuvik has been convicted of impaired driving causing the death of another man in October 2022.
On Monday in Inuvik, NWT Supreme Court Chief Justice Shannon Smallwood found Joseph Wright, 29, guilty of one count each of impaired operation causing death and criminal negligence causing the death of Morgan Sydney.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Wright had been driving his employer’s pickup truck on the Inuvik-Tuktoyatuk Highway outside the town on October 8, 2022.
At one point, the facts state, Sydney was riding on the hood while Wright was driving. Sydney fell off the truck and sustained a fatal head injury.
He was taken to the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton, where he died of his injuries on October 10.
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Sydney’s death was determined to be caused by a traumatic brain injury due to blunt force injury to his head.
RCMP were unable to identify the exact location where Sydney fell off the vehicle and were unable to recover physical evidence, including Sydney’s phone.
When RCMP examined Wright’s employer’s truck, they found an empty bottle of vodka and empty beer bottles.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled to take place in Invuik on September 8.
Both charges carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Neither charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence.
