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The hail of bullets fired into a parked SUV which killed two Calgary drug dealers only struck one of them once, a pathologist testified Friday.
But Alberta Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Akmal Coetzee-Khan said the single projectile which killed Japneet Malhi was enough to end his life before medical aid could even arrive.
“With Mr. Malhi there was no evidence of any medical interventions,” Coetzee-Khan told Crown prosecutor Brian Holtby.
The doctor said despite only being struck once, the single bullet injured multiple organs in the victim’s body.
“There was a gunshot entrance wound to the right side of the chest,” Coetzee-Khan testified.
“This was a perforating gunshot wound with an entrance and an exit.”
The bullet struck the lower lobes of the victim’s right lung, the right side of his diaphragm and damaged his liver, he told a Calgary Court of King’s Bench jury.
“The cause of death was identified as firearm injuries to the torso. There was a single gunshot wound that had gone through and injured multiple structures.”
Coetzee-Khan said Jasdeep Singh, who was found in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes SUV, suffered seven gunshot wounds.
“The chief finding in the autopsy was multiple gunshot wounds to the body,” he said.
Two pierced “the left side of the face and right neck.”
“There was another gunshot wound to the right side of the face,” the doctor said.
“There were two gunshot wounds to the right shoulder.”
He also found “pseudo stippling” on Singh’s body, indicating the bullets had passed through portions of the SUV before striking the victim.
“This is due to what we call an intermediate target,” Coetzee-Khan explained.
“In this case it would be the vehicle. It would be glass or pieces of metal from the car.”
Those fragments latched onto Singh’s skin leaving “little lacerations that we would see on the skin.”
Charged with two counts each of first-degree murder in the April 3, 2019, shooting outside a northeast Calgary lounge are Jaskaran Singh Sidhu and Prabhjyot Bhatti.
Court earlier heard the two men exited the Mazaj Restaurant and Lounge on Barlow Trail N.E. shortly after 2 a.m., with Malhi’s girlfriend and had just entered the SUV, when a car sped by and bullets rained on the victims.
Manpreet Sidhu, who got into the back seat, was uninjured in the gangland-style attack.
Meanwhile, court heard a rural resident northeast of Calgary discovered a rusted firearm on her property on May 27, 2019.
RCMP Const. Samuel Cote said he seized the weapon which “looked like an assault rifle which had been somewhat modified.”
Cote said there was a magazine clip in the gun and a bullet in the chamber.
While lawyers are still pushing for earlier trial dates for historical double-murder suspect Stuart Douglass MacGregor, his fall, 2025 hearing was actually pushed back a week on Friday.
Defence lawyer Rebecca Snukal said that despite telling co-counsel Michael Bates she would be available for an Oct. 27, 2025, start for MacGregor’s Calgary Court of King’s Bench jury trial, she was double-booked for that date.
As a result, Snukal asked Justice David Labrenz to reschedule MacGregor’s three-week hearing in connection with the fatal shooting of two men more than three decades ago to begin next Nov. 3.
But the lawyer said she and Bates are still awaiting word from Associate Chief Justice Blair Nixon on the possibility of having MacGregor’s trial heard earlier, perhaps next summer when the court normally doesn’t sit for hearings.
Traditionally, Calgary Court of King’s Bench doesn’t hold trials in the months of July and August, but there have been instances in the past where hearings have been held during those summer months.
“We have written to … Justice Nixon to see about getting earlier dates,” Snukal told Labrenz.
“We are making efforts to move it significantly earlier.”
MacGregor, 55, faces two counts of first-degree murder in the July 11, 1994, shooting deaths of Calgarians Barry Buchart and Trevor Deakins.
He was arrested last November, nearly 30 years after the two men were slain in their basement suite in the southeast community of Raddison Heights.
Just weeks after MacGregor’s arrest, Calgarian Leonard Brian Cochrane was convicted in the two men’s killings and is serving a life sentence without parole for a minimum 25 years.
MacGregor, who remains in custody, has twice been denied bail following applications by Snukal, but Bates said earlier this month a third bid for freedom may proceed if an earlier trial date for the accused can’t be found.
Sex offender James Francis Pritchard offered a profane comment Thursday after a Calgary judge said she wouldn’t sentence him after he dismissed his lawyer.
Pritchard told Justice Brandy Shaw he wished to proceed to sentencing in his case after defence counsel Moira McAvoy withdrew from the file due to a breakdown in the solicitor-client relationship.
“Mr. Pritchard, you understand that?” Shaw asked the offender, as McAvoy detailed the reason she wished to withdraw.
“Yes,” Pritchard said.
“You no longer wish Ms. McAvoy to represent you?”
“Yes,” the offender repeated.
But when the Calgary Court of Justice judge asked Pritchard if he wished to get another lawyer he said no.
“I just wish to be sentenced.”
Crown prosecutor Samina Dhalla indicated she would be seeking a significant penitentiary term for the Calgary man, leading Shaw to tell the offender he should seek new counsel.
“Mr. Pritchard, that’s not happening today,” she said of his wish to be sentenced immediately.
“This is an extremely serious matter.”
“Okay, I’ll call Legal Aid and get another lawyer, f— bull—,” he replied.
Shaw convicted Pritchard last month of sexually assaulting a woman after attacking her with a crowbar, despite the fact the victim could not be found to testify because CCTV footage captured the attack.
McAvoy had conceded the surveillance established Pritchard had struck the woman twice with a crowbar, but argued Shaw should have found the victim had consented to performing oral sex.
Shaw disagreed, saying even if she found the victim, identified by the initials CT, had subjectively consented it was only because of the threat she would be further assaulted with the weapon.
“He struck her with the crowbar twice to extort her cooperation so he could get fellatio,” the judge said.
The case is back in court next week to update Pritchard’s search for new counsel.
Repeatedly assaulting a young child under her care won’t mean jail for an abusive daycare worker, a Calgary judge ruled Thursday.
Instead, Justice Paul Mason ordered Rita Niure to serve a 12-month conditional sentence in the community followed by probation.
The first nine months of the community term will be served under house arrest while Niure must comply with a nightly curfew for the final three months.
A term of her probation is that she not attend anywhere children can be expected to be unless she is with an adult aware of her condition.
Niure pleaded guilty in October 2023, in connection with a series of assaults she committed on a 13-month-old boy under her care at the Kidzee Early Learning & Daycare on 11th Street S.E.
During a sentencing hearing last May, Crown prosecutor Rebecca Ross, who had sought a jail term of four to six months, detailed how the Calgary woman repeatedly assaulted the boy over a period of three days in early December 2022.
Ross told the Calgary Court of Justice hearing the boy’s parents took him to hospital on Dec. 10, 2022, after noticing bruising. That triggered a police investigation and a review of CCTV footage at the daycare.
Video showed that on Dec. 1, 6 and 7, Niure, 30, assaulted the young boy, whom the prosecutor noted was too young to even report the abuse.
“On Dec. 3, 2022, his parents noted that he appeared to be fearful of encounters with family members, which was atypical for him,” Ross said.
Video footage played in court showed Niure roughhousing the child, slapping him, tugging on his arms and legs and shaking him.
The footage detailed more than 20 discrete incidents in which Niure was aggressive with the child.
A co-worker of Niure’s, Mursal Akbari, was granted a conditional discharge last month for assaulting the same child on a single occasion.
The lawyer for a city man charged in connection with a shootout with police north of the city told court Thursday she was surprised her client didn’t “snap” earlier, considering the tragic turns his life has taken.
Defence counsel Rebecca Snukal, who successfully argued Stefan Service should be released on bail pending trial, said she was initially shocked when she read the allegations against her client.
“The first time I received the disclosure (from the Crown) I said, ‘Wow, you don’t see that often,’” Snukal told Justice Mike Dinkel about the incident last summer on a darkened Highway 2.
But she said as she learned of Service’s background she began to understand why her client went off the rails after an argument with his girlfriend, Robyn Gilholm.
“I wondered why he didn’t snap sooner,” Snukal said.
The lawyer said along with an abusive upbringing at the hands of his stepfather, Service has endured the loss of one child with Gilholm, when it was discovered the fetus had no heartbeat; the death of an earlier toddler, who succumbed to COVID-19 in November 2021; and the homicide of his mother.
Snukal said her client attended the hearing in which Karen Jordan’s killer, Paul Tamasi, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter.
Tamasi strangled Jordan in 2013 and dumped her remains in a secluded area near Grande Prairie, where they were found seven years later.
In detailing the allegations against Service, Crown prosecutor Patrick Bigg told Dinkel the incident started with a fight between him and Gilholm which resulted in her asking him to leave their Deer Run home.
During the dispute Service had broken a side mirror on the truck Gilholm was driving and she called the police after he left.
Service was pulled over on Anderson Road near Acadia Drive S.E. but fled that traffic stop, running a red light in the process, Bigg said.
A short time later another Calgary police officer saw him driving his Dodge Ram truck through a red light on Canyon Meadows Drive S.E.
The HAWCS helicopter picked him up at Anderson and Macleod Trail and followed him northbound on Deerfoot Trail out of the city, where Mounties continued to monitor from a distance, the prosecutor said.
At one point Service fired a shotgun out of his driver’s side window and was eventually forced to stop after his tires had been deflated.
Police tried to engage him in conversation from a distance, but Service got out of his truck and fired at one of the officers, Bigg said.
“At that point an exchange of gunfire from both sides (occurred).”
Bigg said shots hit both an RCMP cruiser and a Calgary police car that officers used to duck for cover.
“A total of seven shotgun shots were fired by the accused.”
Dinkel said despite the seriousness of the allegation, he agreed with Snukal that the release plan she proposed would adequately protect the public.
“This is a very close call and I don’t expect the average guy on the street to understand why I made the call, or even the police,” Dinkel said.
Among Service’s release conditions are that he is prohibited from consuming alcohol or drugs, can’t drive and must enter a residential treatment facility for his booze addiction as soon as possible.
Her voice trembling with emotion, a Calgary woman on Tuesday described crouching down in the back seat of an SUV as her boyfriend and his drug trafficking partner were slain in a hail of bullets.
Manpreet Sidhu said she, boyfriend Japneet Malhi and Jasdeep Singh had just finished drinks at the Mazaj Restaurant and Lounge on Barlow Trail N.E. when they walked to the parking lot to get in Singh’s Mercedes.
“I was closing the door beside me looking down to make sure I had my belongings with me,” Sidhu told Crown prosecutor Brian Holtby.
She said she heard a loud sound she initially thought were fireworks, before realizing the peril they were in.
“I quickly realized that we were getting shot at,” Sidhu said.
She said she got down on the floor of the vehicle while the shots were fired.
“It happened pretty fast. If I were to guess it was anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds,” the witness said.
“I thought I was dead. I didn’t think I was alive.”
Sidhu said when she felt it was safe she looked up to first see Singh in the driver’s seat.
“He was bleeding out of his neck and then I looked over to the passenger and he was slouched over to the side,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion.
Sidhu got out and immediately called 911.
Charged with two counts each of first-degree murder are Calgarians Jaskaran Singh Sidhu and Prabhjyot Bhatti in connection with the April 3, 2019, early morning incident.
The witness said that while she was aware Malhi, who she was casually dating, and Singh were involved in the drug trade, neither expressed any concerns for their safety.
Sidhu said she had never met either of the two accused before the deadly attack.
But that changed in the months that followed, when Bhatti persistently tried to meet with her.
“I had never met him before,” Sidhu said.
“He had reached out to me multiple times after the incident occurred,” she said.
“He was very persistent in getting me to meet with him in person.”
Sidhu said eventually agreed to meet him because she was vulnerable at the time due to the trauma she suffered as a result of the shooting and had begun taking codeine, which he could supply.
But under cross-examination by Bhatti’s lawyer, Andrea Urquhart, the woman admitted having more than a drug relationship with the accused.
“At some point in your relationship it turned sexual, is that correct?” the lawyer suggested.
“Sure,” Sidhu said.
The trial is scheduled for four weeks.
The fate of two Calgary homicide suspects is now in the hands of a jury of their peers.
A Calgary Court of King’s Bench jury began deliberations early Monday afternoon in the trial of Laura Lavorato and Devon Shedrick after hearing final instructions on the law from Justice Keith Yamauchi.
Shedrick is charged with first-degree murder and Lavorato manslaughter in the July 2, 2022, fatal shooting of her abusive boyfriend, Shawn McCormack.
It’s Crown prosecutor Peter Mackenzie’s theory Lavorato enlisted Shedrick to go to her Forest Lawn home and severely beat McCormack up to get him to leave her residence.
But he argued before jurors last Friday that Shedrick, who had been the victim of an assault at McCormack’s hands a month earlier when the two men were housed at the Calgary Remand Centre, took it a step further and decided to kill the victim.
Mackenzie said Lavorato’s intention to have McCormack seriously harmed by Shedrick, even though she didn’t want him dead, made her guilty of manslaughter, while Shedrick committed a planned and deliberate killing, making him guilty of first-degree murder.
But lawyers for the two accused argued the Crown’s case hadn’t been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Defence lawyer Kim Ross, who represents Shedrick, said the prosecution hadn’t established his client was the assailant who shot McCormack once in the chest before the victim’s body was removed from the Forest Lawn home and dumped in a Mount Royal alley, where it was discovered the next day.
Mackenzie had argued crucial “hold-back” evidence attributed to Shedrick by a jailhouse informant, who can’t be named, established the accused had intimate knowledge of the killing because he had committed it.
But Ross submitted the witness was only trying to pin the crime on his client to gain favour with the police in hopes of having his impending sentencing on drug and weapons charges reduced.
Ross said the witness could have obtained the hold-back evidence, that McCormack was shot from a distance a single time in the chest with a .22 calibre bullet, from someone else on the street before he was incarcerated with Shedrick.
“My friend says this is information only the shooter would know. I agree. (But) we don’t know who the shooter was,” Ross told jurors.
Lavorato’s lawyer, Rebecca Snukal, suggested there was nothing in her client’s statement to the police which would indicate she wanted McCormack seriously harmed.
Fatal shooting victims had no idea of the danger that lurked outside as they had drinks inside a northeast Calgary lounge, jurors were told Monday.
In her opening address, Crown prosecutor Aurelie Beland told a Calgary Court of King’s Bench jury about how Jasdeep Singh, 25, and Japneet Malhi, 22, were ambushed as they were about to drive away from the Mazaj Restaurant and Lounge on Barlow Trail N.E.
Beland said the two men, and friend Manpreet Sidhu, had gone to the lounge the evening of April 2, 2019, to unwind.
“As they enjoyed their drinks and conversation inside, they had no suspicion of the danger lurking outside,” the prosecutor said.
Beland said “rivals” of the two men, who were involved in the drug trade, were made aware of their presence at the Mazaj.
She said a suspect vehicle was captured on security cameras driving through the Mazaj parking lot several times, before returning a final time at 12:46 a.m. on April 3.
“It is believed there were two occupants in the vehicle,” Beland told jurors.
“They parked and laid in wait for approximately 90 minutes with the vehicle turned on.”
Around 2:14 a.m., Singh and Malhi settled their bill and began walking to Singh’s Mercedes SUV parked nearby.
“Together with Manpreet (Sidhu), they walked to the Mercedes, unaware of the impending danger. Jasdeep took the driver’s seat, Japneet settled in the passenger seat and Manpreet climbed into the back,” Beland said.
“The instant they shut the doors to the Mercedes, Prabhjyot Batti and Jaskaran Sidhu sprang into action, driving past the Mercedes and unleashing a hail of bullets with a sawed-off automatic rifle.”
“Jasdeep (Singh) was struck in the neck and chest, while Japneet (Malhi) was struck in the chest. Manpreet remained unharmed.”
The female passenger called 911 as the vehicle sped away.
Malhi died at the scene while Singh, who was transported by EMS, died a short time later at Foothills Medical Centre, jurors heard.
“It’s the prosecution’s theory that Jasdeep Singh and Japneet Malhi were ambushed and shot by Jaskaran Sidhu and Prabhjyot Batti,” Beland said.
Both accused face two charges each of first-degree murder.
The prosecutor said the men were known to each other.
“The theory is that these were planned and deliberate murders.”
Meanwhile, in evidence, court heard from one of the first police officers on the scene.
Const. Dianna Berezowski testified she received a call about a firearms complaint.
“A drive-by shooting had occurred outside a restaurant,” Berezowski said.
She said she went to the passenger side where a bystander was trying to assist Malhi.
The officer said she cut the victim’s shirt to get access to his injury.
“There was a large, gaping wound on the right side of his chest,” she said.
Berezowski said the victim was unconscious and unresponsive but taking shallow breaths.
“The condition of the passenger changed about the time EMS arrived,” she said.
“At that time EMS declared the person deceased as they were not able to find a pulse.”
The trial is set for four weeks.
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