Witness says Shaylin Sutherland-Kayseas bragged about killing Dylan Phillips
CBC News | Posted: September 10, 2018 2:25 PM | Last Updated: September 10, 2018
Saskatoon woman charged with first-degree murder
A former friend of Shaylin Sutherland-Kayseas said during the first day of a Saskatoon murder trial the accused talked openly about how she "bodied" Dylan Phillips.
Phillips, 26, was beaten with a fence board and shot at his home on Avenue G North in October 2016. He died at the scene.
Sutherland-Kayseas is on trial at Saskatoon Court of Queen's Bench, charged with first-degree murder, murder for the benefit of a criminal organization and two counts of assault with a weapon.
Locked in trunk
Kathleen Belanger said in court Monday that her friend bragged about how she killed Phillips during a drug deal. She said the story emerged while a group drove around in a silver Impala used the night of the killing.
"Shaylin was bragging that she bodied somebody, that her and Trent Southwind were part of a murder. It was a drug deal gone bad," Belanger said.
They hit me in the face, zip-tied me and put me in a car trunk.
- Kathleen Belanger
"The clothes they used were in the trunk. It was sloppy, stupid shit."
Belanger said that, after hearing about the killing in the car, she went to another friend's house and heard on the news about an unsolved murder and realized that's what Sutherland-Kayseas had been discussing.
Belanger told her friend and her mother.
The next day, Sutherland-Kayseas and others showed up at the friend's house.
"I thought we were going to get high. It wasn't like that. They hit me in the face, zip-tied me and put me in a car trunk," she said.
She said she was taken to another house, confined in the basement and beaten. That only stopped when she indicated she had a cousin who was a high-ranking member of the Terror Squad. That story checked out, and Sutherland Kayseas had Belanger placed on "probation."
"They said I'd be with her 24-f--king-seven," Belanger said.
"I should have kept my mouth shut."
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Jessie Buydens, Belanger said she overheard many of the conversations from the car trunk, which is where she was kept while Sutherland-Kayseas drove around. She also confirmed that she was addicted to meth when it all happened.
"They were going to make the drug deal. Something happened. A murder took place," she said.
Co-accused
Two other people were also initially charged with first-degree murder in Phillips' death, but both pleaded guilty to lesser offences.
In November, 2017, a 15-year-old teen pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Phillips' death and received a three-year sentence. He was originally charged with first-degree murder.
In January, Trent Raymond Southwind also pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death.
The homicide was the tenth to take place in Saskatoon in 2016.
Sutherland-Kayseas' trial is expected to last 15 days at Saskatoon's Court of Queen's Bench.