REGINA – A man from Okanese First Nation who had pled guilty to second degree murder will not be eligible for parole for a decade.
James Stonechild, 40, received a sentence of life in prison without eligibility for parole for ten years at a court appearance Wednesday in Regina King’s Bench Court. Stonechild is also subject to a number of other conditions which include several individuals he is not allowed to have contact with, as well as lifetime prohibitions on possession of a firearm or a prohibited firearm. He must also provide a sample for DNA.
Last month, Stonechild had entered a guilty plea to second degree murder of Amanda Keewatin, 32, of Peepeekisis Cree Nation.
The incident took place Sept. 24, 2024, at approximately 4:40 a.m. that morning. File Hills Police Service reported that they responded to a call regarding an injured individual at a home on Okanese First Nation.
According to the facts outlined in court Wednesday, Stonechild had called File Hills police requesting they respond to the residence. When police arrived Stonechild told the officers “she’s gone and I guess you’ll need to take me in for murder.”
Keewatin had died of multiple stab wounds including to her heart, lung and liver. According to the facts outlined in court, police had found a large kitchen knife of about 30 cm in length, covered in Keewatin’s blood.
Stonechild had been in an on-again, off-again relationship with Keewatin, according to the facts outlined in court.
On Wednesday, both the Crown and defence counsel made a joint submission on sentence in which they called for Stonechild to be ineligible for parole for a period of ten years.
Several victim impact statements were read into the record. Stonechild also gave his statement, in which he accepted responsibility for what happened.
Stonechild said “not a day goes by” where he did not regret what he did, saying he was struggling mentally and was suicidal at the time. He also spoke of having turned to God and the Bible and said if he had read the Bible sooner “none of this would have happened.”
In handing down her decision, Justice Catherine Dawson said the victim impact statements provided a vivid picture of Amanda Keewatin as “deeply loved by all who knew her,” noting the statements “spoke to the enormity of the loss.”
Justice Dawson also accepted the joint submission of counsel. She noted that among the aggravating factors was that Keewatin was an intimate partner of Stonechild and that she had been stabbed multiple times with a knife.
Justice Dawson said Keewatin suffered a “brutal, vicious and violent death” at the hands of her partner. She also said the circumstances “offer no real answer as to the question of why.”
She called it a crime of “absolute senseless violence, domination and cruelty.”
As for mitigating factors, Dawson pointed to Stonechild having called 911 and immediately admitting he committed the crime, and his early guilty plea and acceptance of responsibility.
In the end, Dawson found the proposed sentence was within the range of similar cases of second degree murder. She called the actions of Stonechild “shocking, appalling, horrific and unexplainable.”
