16-year-old pleads guilty to one of two killings at Edmonton Mac’s stores

The youth charged in the shooting deaths of two Mac’s convenience store workers in Edmonton pleaded guilty Monday to all but one charge of first-degree murder, for which he’s now on trial.

In the early morning hours of Dec. 18, 2015, two convenience store clerks — Ricky Cenabre and Karanpal Bhangu — were shot to death at two separate Mac’s locations on the south side.

The 16-year-old boy was 13 at the time of the deaths and cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. 

He was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Cenabre, manslaughter in the death of Bhangu, plus two counts of robbery with a restricted or prohibited weapon and two counts of being disguised in both deaths.

READ MORE: Preliminary hearing held for teenager facing first-degree charges in Edmonton Mac’s killings

On Monday, the youth pleaded guilty to all of the charges in the death of Bhangu. However, he pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Cenabre.

Cenabre’s fiancée, Editha Alcazaren-Cenabre, was in the courtroom on Monday but had to leave when surveillance video of Cenabre’s death was shown as evidence.

Cenabre’s niece and 18-year-old son were also in court for Day 1 of the trial.

“He was a very, very nice guy,” Cenabre’s niece, Faith Alcazaren, said. “He was too young to die.

“He helped all of us nieces from his wife’s relatives, all of us. I’m a relative of the wife, we’re not related by blood, but he helped up every time financially, everything. He is a very nice person.”

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The family was in the Philippines when Cenabre was killed in December 2015. He was set to travel back home to marry his fiancee in April 2016. Cenabre’s fiancée, niece and son have been in Canada since April 2017 for the court proceedings.

“It’s terrible,” Cenabre’s son, John Cedric Cenabre, said of losing his dad. “We don’t know what to do. Being here is hard for us.”

The trial is scheduled to last four days before a youth court judge.

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Bhangu, 35, had recently emigrated from India. He was killed while working overnight at the Mac’s convenience store near 32 Avenue and 82 Street in Mill Woods.

Cenabre, 41, had come to Canada five years earlier from the Philippines. He was working overnight at a convenience store at 108 Street and 61 Avenue in the Pleasantview area when he was killed about 20 minutes after the shooting in Mill Woods.

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Two men were accused in connection to the deaths. One of them, Laylin Delorme, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder earlier this year. The other, Colton Steinhauer, has not yet been tried.

READ MORE: Man guilty of first-degree murder in deaths of Edmonton Mac’s clerks

The Mac’s stores in question have since been re-branded as Circle K stores, as part of a plan announced by Quebec-based parent company Alimentation Couche-Tard several months before the killings took place.