N.B. man who fatally stabbed fellow inmate Calvin Kenny gets 22-year sentence
A New Brunswick man who killed a fellow inmate while serving a murder sentence expressed remorse to his victim's family, but said he did it to protect himself.
"Nobody knows what goes on in there but the guys in there," Brandon Blake Colford, 27, said during his sentencing hearing Wednesday in Miramichi, in eastern New Brunswick.
"I had to do what I had to do for my own safety, and for that I'm sorry I guess, but it is what it is."
Colford, originally charged with second-degree murder, pleaded guilty in September to the lesser charge of manslaughter in the Feb. 18, 2019, stabbing death of Calvin Clifford Kenny.
Colford and Kenny, a 27-year-old from Fermeuse, N.L., were inmates at the Atlantic Institution in Renous. The maximum security prison is about 30 kilometres southwest of Miramichi.
Colford admits using a 20-centimetre shank, a weapon made in the prison, to stab Kenny more than 40 times.
22-year sentence
Court of King's Bench Justice Darrell Stephenson sentenced Colford to 22 years in prison, saying his actions have no place in society and must be denounced.
The sentence was a joint recommendation from Colford's defence lawyer and the Crown prosecutor. It is near the high end of potential manslaughter sentences.
Colford pleaded guilty to manslaughter shortly before his jury trial on a second-degree murder charge was set to start.
Both lawyers declined to comment after the judge issued the decision Wednesday afternoon.
Kenny was serving a sentence of 12½ years in Renous. He was one of four men charged in the death of Steven Miller in Conception Bay South, N.L., in 2016.
Colford, from Blackville, was serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 15 years when he killed Kenny. Colford had pleaded guilty to stabbing 49-year-old Michael Mark Ryan more than 50 times in Miramichi on April 23, 2016.
According to an agreed statement of facts given to Stephenson, Colford and Kenny were in the same unit at the prison with other inmates from Newfoundland, who considered Kenny their leader.
The statement says Colford claimed Kenny "and his gang threatened to harm him because they alleged he had snitched concerning an incident that had occurred in the kitchen the day prior to the homicide."
It also says Colford claimed Kenny threatened and assaulted him in the cell, and he reacted to defend himself.
The statement notes that the Crown had no evidence to support or contradict Colford's claim.
Surveillance video showed Colford entering Kenny's cell around 9:28 a.m. on Feb. 18, 2019. He left and went back to his own cell across the hallway at 9:50 a.m.
"He went and cleaned up, leaving Mr. Kenny in his cell to be found a while later by guards," Crown prosecutor Jean-Guy Savoie said to the judge.
Around 10:07 a.m., a correctional officer looked into Kenny's cell. It was covered in blood and Kenny had no signs of life.
An autopsy found he was stabbed more than 40 times and that his death was caused by sharp force injuries to his head, neck, chest and extremities.
Kenny was serving a sentence for manslaughter committed in Newfoundland. (CBC)
Kenny's parents, Linda and Clifford Kenny, said in victim impact statements that they have been left devastated.
His mother said she pities Colford and hopes he has nightmares for the rest of his life.
"The void left by Calvin's loss is immeasurable," Clifford said in his statement.
They said said Kenny's son will grow up without memories of his father.
Stephenson said Colford's sentence will be served concurrently with his sentence for the 2016 murder.
