REGINA — A sentencing hearing is set for Wednesday for a Saskatchewan man who admitted last week to killing his wife, almost two years after his original murder conviction was overturned on appeal.
Jason Daniel McKay was first found guilty in 2020 of second-degree murder in the death of his wife, 33-year-old Jenny Leigh McKay. According to court documents, police were called to the couple’s Regina home around 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 6, 2017, after Jenny McKay’s mother requested a wellness check.
According to court documents, when officers arrived, McKay answered the door covered in blood and appeared to be intoxicated. He told them, “she’s upstairs, she’s dead, I killed her.”
Jenny McKay was found on the kitchen floor with a large knife in her chest, having suffered dozens of stab wounds, and other wounds, in what the trial judge described as an attack of “unspeakable brutality.” The cuts were both ante-mortem and post-mortem, and more than one weapon had been used.
In 2020, McKay was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 17 years.
Court documents reveal that at trial, McKay’s lawyer argued he had been in an alcohol-and Sertraline-induced blackout and couldn’t form the intent required for murder. His defence also pointed to evidence of a volatile relationship and a loud argument before the killing, arguing the judge should have considered whether anger or provocation affected his state of mind.
In July 2024, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal ordered a new trial, finding the trial judge made legal errors by failing to consider expert evidence about how drugs and alcohol could cause amnesia and impair judgment. It also found the judge failed to consider whether evidence of anger, conflict, or instinctive reaction, even if insufficient for a full provocation defence, could still be relevant to intent.
His defence lawyer told the court in 2020 that there was evidence the McKays were alcoholics, that there was verbal and physical conflict between them. On the night of the murder they had a heated fight that was loud enough to be overhead by neighbours across the street.
Before McKay’s new trial was to start, he entered a guilty plea last week.
After his conviction was overturned in 2024, he remained in custody pending his second trial.
