After two days, a sentencing hearing for the man convicted in the 2017 killing of an Abbotsford, B.C., woman has been unexpectedly adjourned.
Abbotsford mother Chelsey Lea Gauthier was stabbed to death in 2017 and found in a shallow grave in an isolated wooded area of Mission.
Police arrested a suspect, Gary Donald Losch, on Sept. 9, 2022. Losch was charged the next day with second-degree murder and interference with a dead body or indignity to human remains.
On Wednesday, Losch stunned the Abbotsford courtroom when his lawyers said he was admitting his guilt in Gauthier’s death, saying he was moved by the victim impact statements on Tuesday.
“It could be remorse, but overall, I think he is just trying to get leniency from the judge,” Jayden Silvester, Gauthier’s friend, told Global News.
On July 27, 2017, 22-year-old Gautheir was hired by Losch to work in his illegal marijuana grow-up near Mission.
Her body was found weeks later in a remote area and she had no clothes on from the waist down.
In a police interview from 2022, just before being charged, Losch denied any culpability in Gauthier’s death, saying he was framed.
“Eight years of him lying about it, he could have done something,” Silvester said.
“He could have done something from the very beginning.”
In another development, Losch asserts he is Indigenous so the judge adjourned proceedings, saying he is entitled to a Gladue Report to help determine sentencing.
“A report had been previously ordered, a report into Mr. Losch’s Indigenous background. One wasn’t completed by the report preparer,” defence lawyer Andrew Cochrane said.
However, the report wasn’t completed because Losch does not have official Indigenous status.
Cochrane said there were no previous reports ordered.
So far, Gauthier’s family and friends have been left without closure.
“We had to wait a couple months to get to this point to sentencing, and now we’re going to have to wait longer,” Chelsey’s brother, Jeremiah Gauthier, said.
“Making us wait longer for a verdict that we’ve been waiting eight years for.”