Hay River man sentenced to 11 years for manslaughter in the death of Alex Norwegian

N.W.T. Supreme Court Justice Shannon Smallwood said that the level of violence Levi Cayen and his co-accused displayed "was gratuitous to what they hoped to achieve."

And for his role in Alex Norwegian's death, Smallwood sentenced Cayen to 11 years for manslaughter and seven years for robbery on Thursday. Both sentences are to be served concurrently.

After deducting six-and-a-half years of credit for time served, Cayen has four-and-a-half years remaining on his sentence.

In March, a jury convicted Cayen of manslaughter. He had originally been charged with murder, and he pleaded guilty to robbery before the trial began. 

Cayen is the last of four co-accused to be sentenced in connection with the killing and robbing of Norwegian on Dec. 27, 2017.

Cayen, along with James Thomas, met Norwegian on a remote road on the Kátł'odeeche Fırst Natıon reserve.

The men beat him with a bat and steel pipe, used rope to confine him, stole his clothes, smashed in his car windows and left Norwegian to die — ultimately of hypothermia — on the side of the road. 

In his submissions earlier this week, Crown prosecutor Duane Praught argued Cayen should face 15 years in custody on the manslaughter conviction. 

He listed the planning, the brutality of the attack, the use of weapons and the burning of evidence after the fact as aggravating factors that merit the lengthy sentence. 

Alan Regel, representing Cayen, said that the four and a half years Cayen has already spent at the North Slave Correctional Centre (NSCC) is enough. 

Regel argued Cayen should be sentenced to time served and 18 months of probation. 

He pointed to a letter of support from the chief of West Point First Nation as evidence of "a bright future" for the man in his early twenties. 

Smallwood said that the sentence Regel proposed was "inappropriate" and that Praught's submission would be more suitable.