Alberta Court of Appeal overturns 1st-degree murder conviction for Calgary duo

Alberta’s Court of Appeal has overturned a first-degree murder conviction of a Calgary man and woman in relation to a 2017 quadruple killing.

Tewodros Kebede and Yu Chieh Liao were given life sentences in 2020 for the first-degree murder of Hanock Afowerk.

According to a Court of Appeal decision published Friday, Afowerk was lured or taken to an auto body shop. He was then extorted and killed while confined there.

The remains of Cody Pfeiffer and sisters Glynnis Fox and Tiffany Ear were found in Afowerk’s burnt-out car days before his tortured body was found by a rural highway.

Kebede was also sentenced to six years for being an accessory after Pfeiffer’s murder. Liao was sentenced to seven years for being an accessory after the deaths of the three victims in the car.

No one has been charged with the deaths of Pfeiffer, Fox and Ear. Prosecutors believed they were killed because they were witnesses to Afowerk’s killing.

At the time, the defence did not call any evidence.

Kebede and Liao appealed the ruling, arguing there were errors pertaining to the evidence submitted and errors in dismissing Kebede’s mistrial application, which led to a miscarriage of justice.

Both appellants also argued the jury was not provided appropriate instruction related to the case and the verdicts were unreasonable.

First-degree murder charges overturned

In a decision published Friday morning, Justices Peter Martin, Jack Watson and Michelle Crighton concluded that the convictions of first-degree murder “cannot stand.”

However, Kebede’s and Liao’s accessory charges still remain.

Martin, Watson and Crighton wrote that while the accessory charges weren’t unreasonable, the Crown prosecutors did not fully explain how the killings were planned and deliberate.

While the evidence of Afowerk’s confinement and extortion was established, the Crown had to prove the killing itself was a planned and deliberate act in the eyes of the law.

The judges found the Crown relied on circumstantial evidence to try and prove the first-degree murder charge.

“The Crown’s contention required the jury to infer the plan was not only to kidnap, confine and extort, but also to kill Mr. Afowerk. There are frailties in this position,” the judges wrote in the decision.

“There was no evidence to indicate they were not, or could not, have been inflicted in quick succession. The medical examiner was not asked about this and there was no direct evidence to suggest the killing happened over an extended period.”

The judges also said the Crown failed to prove that the deliberation required for first-degree murder must have occurred before the act of killing began. Afowerk’s injuries didn’t prove whether or not the killing was planned or deliberate, the judges said.

A text message that was submitted as evidence of a planned and deliberate murder also wasn’t sufficient because it could have multiple interpretations, the judges said.

The judges also ruled the jury may not have fully understood it could consider that the murder may not have been planned and deliberate, even if it was intentional.

The lawyers have been asked to make submissions by Nov. 10 on whether a second-degree murder verdict should be substituted, or order a new trial.

— With files from The Canadian Press