Ryan Poplar didn’t murder his common-law wife Dina Shepherd per se – but court heard on Friday, he did very little to save her life.
The instant Poplar found Shepherd passed out after taking an undetermined amount of psychiatric prescription pills in their Saskatoon home in the 100-block of Tupper Crescent is when he should have called 911.
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Court heard instead he waited – until the very last second to call paramedics on Oct. 6, 2013.
“He had a lot of time to think about what he was doing and the choice that he was making, as well when he finally did call the ambulance, he was instructed to perform CPR and it was clear from the evidence he did not do that,” said Crown prosecutor Melodi Kujawa.
Inside the courtroom, Kujawa went over the agreed statement of facts and said Poplar deliberately left his spouse to die and delayed calling 911.
When he found her she was lying face down, there were pills scattered all over the table and Shepherd had left suicide notes addressed to her mother, her children and him.
Poplar read them, ate a TV dinner, went to bed and occasionally checked on Shepherd – only calling for ambulance when she stopped breathing some 20 hours later.
She was rushed to hospital, where she would die the next day – all alone, despite several attempts by hospital staff to get Poplar to come and be by her bedside as she died.
“There was a long-standing pattern of behaviour so while to an outside observer it looks dramatically unreasonable,” said criminal defence lawyer Kevin Hill.
“When you’re immersed in that kind of lifestyle and there’s a history of things, it seems a lot less unreasonable in the moment I guess.”
During Hill’s sentencing submissions, he argued that Shepherd was a deeply troubled individual who had tried several times to kill herself before and that she suffered from mental health issues.
“I would say that means he had more of a duty of care to take care of her,” said the Crown prosecutor.
On Friday, Poplar was sentenced to three years for criminal negligence causing death and six months for two counts of uttering threats to be served concurrently.
“He of his own volition tells two people about what really happened and then says but if you tell anyone I’ll kill you,” Kujawa said.
Poplar’s lawyer said his client is remorseful and evidence not before the court paints Poplar in a much better light but out of respect for Shepherd, they didn’t go there and chose to resolve the matter instead.
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