Former security guard Sheldon Bentley was found guilty of manslaughter and robbery after fatally kicking a man in the stomach. (Court exhibit)
A Court of Queens Bench judge found 37-year-old Sheldon Bentley guilty Thursday in the 2016 death and robbery of Donald Doucette.
Doucette died on July 31, 2016, after he was kicked in the stomach while passed out drunk in the alley behind the Lucky 97 grocery store at 107th Avenue and 97th Street in Edmonton.
Donald Doucette in a 2003 photo supplied by his family. (Supplied)
Bentley, a security guard for the store at the time, first stole $20 from Doucette, and then stomped on the sleeping man’s stomach, causing massive internal bleeding.
He has been found guilty on charges of manslaughter and robbery.
Justice Paul Belzil recounted the findings of an autopsy report that determined Doucette lost about two litres of blood from two tears in his mesentery, which connects several internal organs to the abdominal wall.
Doucette likely died minutes after the assault.
The location where the assault occurred was a blind spot for security cameras in the area, but Belzil noted that Bentley admitted to kicking Doucette “pretty hard.”
‘He was to be trusted’
Bentley stared intently at the judge as the decision was delivered, as his mother, Patricia Nelson, wiped away tears.
She bent over and fought back sobs when Crown prosecutor Kristen Logan said she plans to seek a sentence of seven years or more.
Bentley’s mother, Patricia Nelson, apologized to Donald Doucette’s daughter after the decision was delivered. (Anna McMillan/CBC)
“My biggest fear is that he’s going to be harmed in jail because he was in a position of authority and he was to be trusted,” Nelson said outside of the courthouse.
“Something went wrong that day,” she said. “I’m hoping that he can get this anger or whatever it is out of him.”
Nelson approached Doucette’s daughter, Tianna Doucette-Moody, inside the courtroom, saying she’s “deeply sorry for the actions of my son.”
Doucette-Moody said she’s “elated” he was found guilty in the death of her father, who struggled with an alcohol addiction.
“Knowing that somebody’s obviously paying for the crime and the assault that happened with my dad, it brings me peace, knowing that he’s not going to do it again and that justice has been served,” she said.
Doucette-Moody said her father “wasn’t just another homeless person in an alley.”
“He was a father and a loving person and he had a brother and a sister and a mother who all loved him,” she said. “He may have been struggling in his life, but he was a person, too.”
Bentley was out on bail, but is now being held in custody.
He’s scheduled to be back in court for sentencing on Aug. 29.