A white man who shot and killed two Indigenous hunters on a rural road in the Canadian province of Alberta has been found guilty of manslaughter and manslaughter in a case that exposed racial tensions in the region. The man’s father was also found guilty of two counts of manslaughter.
Anthony Bilodeau, 33, and his father, Roger Bilodeau, 58, were charged with the deaths of Maurice Cardinal, 57, and his nephew, Jacob Sansom, 39, on a March night in 2020. After deliberating for less than a day, an Edmonton jury found the two men guilty Tuesday afternoon.
The bodies of the two hunters, who had been celebrating with friends after a successful high hunt, were found in the early hours of March 28 on a rural road 160 miles northeast of Edmonton, a horrible crime that hit the region.
Sansom had recently lost his job as a mechanic and was working as a volunteer firefighter. Cardinal was a great hunter and outdoor enthusiast. Both were Métis, a different group that traces the lineage of both indigenous nations and European settlers, and were allowed to hunt the area out of season.
“These gentlemen, Maurice and Jake, were so important to our Métis community,” Andrea Sandmaier, a representative of the Métis Nation of Alberta, told reporters after the verdict. “It’s a great loss for this family, it’s a great loss for the Métis Nation of Alberta.”
Crown prosecutors had argued that Anthony Bilodeau and Roger Bilodeau believed Sansom and Cardinal were thieves and had taken the law into their own hands with “tragic results”.
“Two innocent men, Jake and Morris, had absolutely nothing to die for that night, these two boys did nothing wrong,” prosecutor Jeff Rudiak told the jury during the final arguments.
The verdict of guilt in a case involving indigenous victims and a knife owner contrasted with another high-profile case in the region. During his 2016 trial, Gerald Stanley admitted to shooting Colten Boushie, but was acquitted of murder charges. Boushie’s mother, Debbie Baptiste, was in court on Tuesday in support of Sansom and Cardinal’s family.
According to a court record, Roger Bilodeau followed Sansom and Cardinal, believing that his truck had been seen on his property the day before.
Bilodeau, accompanied in his truck by his teenage son, chased Sansom and Cardinal through the rural roads at high speed. During the chase, Bilodeau telephoned his son, Anthony, and told him to carry a gun.
Shortly after arriving at the scene where Roger Bilodeau and Sansom’s vehicles were stopped, Anthony Bilodeau shot and killed the two hunters.
Video footage of the deadly encounter between the men, recovered from a nearby gas station, shows Bilodeau shooting Sansom once in the chest. He shot Cardinal three times in the shoulder.
The defense denied the allegations, but said that “it was not possible for him to take part in the murder.” of the men and their little brother in the truck asking for help. .
According to court testimony, Sansom broke the passenger window of Roger Bilodeau’s truck and then allegedly attacked Roger and his teenage son.
When he arrived, Anthony Bilodeau told the court he shot Sansom because the man ran towards him and heard Sansom tell the Cardinal to grab a gun so they could “kill” him.
Anthony Bilodeau testified that he later shot Cardinal after seeing the man with a large weapon with an attached magazine and said Cardinal would kill him in retaliation for shooting Sansom.
Prosecutors said it was Bilodeau who first produced a weapon and brought a weapon to a scene he did not know would be violent, and suggested he planned to increase and use lethal force.
Bilodeau also admitted in court that neither he nor his father reported the deaths to police. They also modified his truck to avoid suspicion.
The defense says she was “very disappointed” with the outcome and would appeal the guilty verdict. Lawyers will meet again on June 17 to discuss the verdict.