REGINA — A Regina jury has convicted Indian Mafia street gang member Dillon Ricky Whitehawk of first-degree murder in the 2019 killing of Keenan Scott Toto, while acquitting him in the separate shooting death of Jordan Gaiton Denton.
The verdict was delivered March 19 in Regina Court of King’s Bench after more than two weeks of evidence. A first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
The retrial was held under extensive publication bans shielding the identities of five Crown witnesses. One witness is currently in the Saskatchewan Witness Protection Program, and others previously received threats after testifying in Whitehawk’s first trial. The court accepted the Crown’s assertion that the India Mafia street gang remains active in Regina and within correctional facilities, creating substantial risk of harm if cooperating witnesses are publicly identified.
The Crown argued that protecting these witnesses was essential to ensuring gang-related homicides can be reported and prosecuted, and that the public interest in safety outweighed any benefit of publishing their names. Associate Chief Justice Michael D. Tochor granted the bans.
Court heard about the violent feud between the Indian Mafia (IM) and the Native Syndicate Killers (NSK) in late 2019. Multiple former IM members testified that Whitehawk carried out both drive-by shootings as part of an effort to rise within the gang. Their accounts described Whitehawk firing from inside vehicles during late-night confrontations, targeting people he believed to be affiliated with rival gangs.
Defence challenged the reliability of the gang witnesses, pointing to contradictions, changing statements, drug use at the time of the shootings, and earlier lies to police. Some witnesses admitted they had previously given false information, and changed their stories under cross-examination.
But prosecutors David Belanger and Adam Breker said their primary evidence was consistent and credible.
Whitehawk is also appealing a third second-degree murder conviction in the 2020 death of Keesha Bitternose. The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal upheld that conviction in a split decision, which allowed the case to proceed to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada is scheduled to hear the appeal in May.
