Thursday’s sentencing of Kirk Keeping for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Chantal John provided more insight and details about the horrific event.
It took Supreme Court Justice Glen Noel almost two hours to get through the 42-page decision, with a recess along the way.
But that made it no less shocking, traumatic and heart-breaking.
Indeed, the victim’s aunt said it was like watching a horror movie, only for real.
The judge covered all aspects of the crime, including the impact on the entire Miawpukek First Nation of Conne River, noting it was the first ever murder in the community.
It happened on the evening of Jan. 9th, 2019, a Wednesday.
Noel related how Keeping went to see Chantal John at her mother’s house, to return some things after their breakup when, in what the judge described as “spontaneous rage,” Keeping slashed the victim’s throat — so deep, that it severed her Adam’s apple.
Bleeding profusely, she managed to run next door for help.
Keeping, meanwhile, made a similar slash at Chantal’s mother, which she mostly blocked, but likely survived by playing dead.
Next door, a neighbour tried in vain to stem the flow of blood, but the judge said the victim knew her fate.
“She knew she was going to die,” stated Noel. “She told the neighbour to let her die — no, let me go, she said, let me go, let me go.”
Keeping was arrested a short time later, found by police in his car, bleeding from self-inflicted knife wounds.
Noel noted the “callousness” of his actions, sending a text to John’s aunt, stating: “I just tried cutting her head off — didn’t work.”
As is often the case with intimate partner violence, Keeping was on court conditions to stay away from Chantal John.
As for why he did what he did, he blamed a sudden jealous rage fuelled by alcohol, with court told he had three times the legal limit in his system at the time of the attack.
The murder devastated the community of Conne River, but they acknowledged some amount of closure with Thursday’s outcome.
Keeping got a life sentence and must serve at least 16 years in a federal prison before he can apply for any kind of parole, which he will be on, in some form, for the rest of his life.
But Justice Noel also noted no sentence can turn back time or bring back Chantal John.
“He murdered his intimate partner, an Indigenous woman,” said the judge, calling those circumstances all too common and “an epidemic.”