WARNING: This story contains details that may be disturbing to some readers.
A B.C. man’s first-degree murder conviction has been overturned after the province’s highest court cited an error by the trial judge.
James David Junior Charlie will now face a new trial for the murder of 28-year-old Fribjon Bjornson, whose remains were found on a reserve near Fort. St. James in February 2012.
Bjornson, a father of two children, was reported missing in January of that year. Two days later, his truck was found on the reserve. A week after that, police found Bjornson’s severed head in a vacant property.
Charlie was arrested along with three other people in November 2013 after a lengthy RCMP investigation and charged with indignity to human remains, to which he pleaded guilty in August 2016.
Charlie was then found guilty of first-degree murder by a jury in October 2017.
Crown’s theory was that Charlie and the other three people assaulted Bjornson “over a prolonged period of time” in the basement of a residence, and that Charlie provided a wire or cord to another man to strangle Bjornson.
According to Crown, Charlie and others took Bjornson’s dead body to the shore of Stuart Lake, where it was covered with snow for about a week, then moved it to another location where “indignities occurred.”
In appealing his conviction, Charlie argued the B.C. Supreme Court judge had “erred in several ways” in answering the jury’s questions during deliberations.
He further contended the judge failed to instruct the jury on all available verdicts, including attempted murder, as well as on Charlie’s partial defence of intoxication.
Crown disputed the appeal on those grounds, but did agree with Charlie on a final point: that the judge gave a “faulty instruction” on criminal intent of party liability for murder.
In the oral ruling on Jan. 24 that was posted online Thursday, a three-judge panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal noted it was one of the rare cases where Crown did not contest all the grounds of appeal raised.
The judges agreed that the appeal should be allowed because the trial judge’s instruction suggested Charlie should be convicted if he intended to assist the person who killed Bjornson, rather than instructing that Charlie must have known that person intended to commit the crime.
Madam Justice Saunders wrote in the decision that the judge’s error was “not a harmless” one, and that it cannot be said the evidence is overwhelming enough to have convicted Charlie.
“While this conclusion is a burden to all those interested in pressing the case to a decisive conclusion, particularly the family and friends of Mr. Bjornson, and also those called on to take part in the trial, in my view, the verdict must be set aside and a new trial ordered,” Saunders wrote.
No date has been set for Charlie’s new trial.
In a Facebook post on Jan. 24, Bjornson’s mother Eileen said she was “angry and sick to my stomach” about the decision.
“We have to go through this whole thing again!” she wrote. “Why can’t he take responsibility for his actions. He helped murder Frib and he should pay the price. Instead we have to face all of this again. It is unbelievable!!!!”
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