Defence asks jury to convict Delorme of manslaughter in trial for Edmonton convenience store killings

Laylin Delorme robbed two Mac’s stores and shot a clerk but he didn’t plan the killing, his lawyer argued to the jury at Delorme’s first-degree murder trial Tuesday.

“If he really planned to kill him, you would have expected he would have done so right at the outset,” said Naeem Rauf. He asked the jury to find his client guilty of manslaughter instead.

Delorme, along with Colton Steinhauer and a youth who cannot be named, is accused of robbing and killing two Mac’s clerks — Ricky Cenabre and Karanpal Bhangu — in separate incidents on Dec. 18, 2015.

On Tuesday, Crown prosecutor John Watson told the jury the murders involved a “high degree of planning and deliberation” and reiterated the theory that Delorme handed a gun to Steinhauer who shot one of the clerks.

Surveillance video shows a person in a grey jacket shooting one of the clerks and a man wearing a black hoodie shooting the other. Steinhauer was wearing a grey jacket. The Crown’s theory is Delorme shot Bhangu and gave the gun to another man who shot Cenabre.

“That plan included killing the on-duty clerk at each store,” Watson said.

Watson maintained the killings were deliberate and the surveillance video shows planning.

“At that point in the robbery, why shoot the clerk? He has offered no resistance. This is cold and calculated after the robbery is complete.”

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Rauf said his client did not hand a gun to Steinhauer and said the violence was a “foolish spur-of-the-moment act of silly young men.”

The jury will receive instructions from the judge before beginning deliberations.

The Mac’s killings unfolded on Dec. 18, 2015 and shocked the city of Edmonton.

READ MORE: Trial hears police found Edmonton murder suspects parked at 3rd Mac’s store

Watch below: On June 11, 2018, Fletcher Kent filed this report after new evidence was presented at the trial of one of three people charged with the murder of two Mac’s convenience store clerks. WARNING: Some of the video in this story is disturbing.

1:43 Trial hears police found Edmonton murder suspects parked at 3rd Mac’s store

-With files from Global News’ Fletcher Kent