ENTERTAINMENT
THE ANNUAL Jack Brow Memorial Track and Field Championships went on the weekend at the Apple Bowl in Kelowna.
THE DESIRE to one day see a trail running the length of the Okanagan along what was the former CN rail line has hit a snag in the North Okanagan, where the Okanagan Indian Band says it will make a claim.
HEART turned half of its Kelowna concert at Propspera Place Saturday night into a tribute to Led Zeppelin, complete with having the son of the late John Bonham playing the drums.
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TUESDAY July 1, 2014 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
Killer fails in appeal to overturn conviction
Kathy Michaels
STAFF REPORTER
A Kelowna man convicted of fatally shooting a teen at a 2007 grad party has failed in another attempt to have his conviction overturned. In an appeal document released Thursday, Trevor Shannon argued the trial judge erred in his instruction to the jury and that’s what led to his second degree murder conviction. The court of appeal didn’t find merit in the application and its reasons were outlined in the online document. Shannon, who was 23-years-old on April 8, 2007, went to the high school party with friends, where they were to meet one of the group’s girlfriends. Their arrival wasn’t well received and a confrontation broke out between one of Shannon’s friends and a belligerent partygoer. That partygoer pulled a knife and behaved in a menacing way. Shannon pulled out his gun, ending the confrontation. As party attendees filtered outside the house following the incident, Evan Wilkes started to taunt Shannon about bringing a gun to the party and things quickly spiralled out of control. “And I was tryin’ to ignore this kid right? He keeps goin’. He keeps on. And I seen him and I think they’re passin’ bear
spray and shit and I am like what the f$%$, like are they actually gonna try to start some shit?” reads a transcript of Shannon’s statement to police. “And then, and the kid, he kept on, kept on and I was like, ‘Buddy honestly just don’t say one more word man.…One more word, I dare you buddy, just say one more word.’”
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I DARE YOU BUDDY, JUST SAY ONE MORE WORD. Trevor Shannon
Wilkes kept taunting and Shannon said he went up to him and hit him with the gun and it went off. “So it musta like, it musta got him in the back of the head or sumpin’, like I don’t know what happened but all I know and I di… I was fu… like what the f$%$ and he hit the ground. I thought I knocked him unconscious,” said Shannon. Wilkes died a few days after the shot to the head from pneumonia, a complication of the injury. Shannon was initially convicted of second degree murder in September 2008. He successfully appealed that conviction and was granted a new trial. He was convicted again in June 2012 and
sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility for parole for 10 years. The basis for the latest appeal was that the judge erred by failing to instruct the jury to consider self defence, by failing to tell the jury to consider intoxication and by incorrectly instructing the jury about what was the unlawful act that could lead to a finding of culpable homicide as a component of a murder conviction. Justice John Hall wrote there was not enough evidence to require an instruction to the jury on self-defence, especially given that Shannon’s lawyer didn’t express any wish to have that defence put to the jury. “There was no air of reality requiring the judge to instruct on an intoxication defence,” Hall wrote. “Regarding the instruction about the unlawful act of firing the gun, the judge clearly put to the jury the possibility of accident which would result in a verdict of manslaughter.” The jury would not have been left in any confusion about the verdicts open to them, he said. “There was, however, from the direction of the bullet path through the skull and the reaction of the appellant at the scene, a measure of evidentiary support for the lesser included verdict of manslaughter. The path to this verdict was accident.”
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WADE PATERSON/CAPITAL NEWS
HAPPY CANADA DAY…Jack Hetherington and Christine Harper‚ better known as
Captain and Mrs. Canada‚ were marshals for the 2014 Westside Daze parade, which took place Saturday in West Kelowna. The patriotic couple gained popularity during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, where they had countless photos taken of them by members of the public, and were interviewed by reporters from around the world.
Cyclists ‘clotheslined’ by fire hose Kathy Michaels STAFF REPORTER
The arrival of firefighters is often a sign of impending relief, but this weekend a few Kelowna
cyclists saw the downside of the usually heroic crew. According to the Kelowna RCMP, a loose hose created a bit of chaos at the intersection of Abbott Street and Harvey
Avenue, when it came off a Kelowna Fire Department truck en route to an emergency call at Leon Avenue. “(The hose) got snagged on a lamppost,
then the fire truck turned at the intersection, and it clotheslined some cyclists,” said Const. Kris
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