Sarnia homicide trial canceled after accused pleads guilty to manslaughter

A homicide trial scheduled to start in Sarnia last week was canceled after the accused pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

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Brandon Gilbert, 26, from Aamjiwnaang was initially charged with aggravated assault linked to what Sarnia police said was a fight during a gathering on Maness Court on the First Nation in the south end of the city on Aug. 28, 2022. Dalton Bressette was taken to London hospital in critical condition, police said at the time.

But Bressette, a 26-year-old father of three, died on Sept. 4, 2022 and Gilbert was arrested 11 days later and charged instead with manslaughter. A trial was scheduled to start last week in Sarnia’s Superior Court of Justice.

But on Friday, Gilbert instead pleaded guilty to the charge. A sentencing hearing has been set for March 6.

Defense lawyer Ken Marley told the judge he’ll be asking for two years’ house arrest. Assistant Crown attorney Sarah Carmody didn’t say what sentence she’ll be requesting, but did say there will be several victim-impact statements read during the hearing.

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Following Gilbert’s guilty plea on Friday, the court heard an agreed statement of facts surrounding the incident. Both men were drinking alcohol and arguing throughout the night of Aug. 28, 2022 during a bonfire in the backyard of a home on Maness Court.

At one point they bumped chests, swore and spat on each other, but the altercation calmed down. Shortly before midnight, Bressette grabbed his backpack and left through an opening in the fence.

Gilbert went after him and came back soon after with his backpack. Bressette returned and their argument escalated again, erupting into a physical fight.

Both men struck each other, with Bressette falling to the ground at one point. He laid there motionless as Gilbert continued to assault him before family members in the backyard intervened.

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Gilbert tried to walk away as police and paramedics arrived, but he was arrested shortly after midnight for aggravated assault, the court heard.

Bressette was taken to Bluewater Health, where he got treatment for an aneurysm. He was later transferred to London, where doctors attempted multiple surgeries to stop the bleeding, but they were unsuccessful and he was pronounced deceased about a week later. The cause of death was a subarachnoid hemorrhage from a ruptured artery.

Gilbert turned himself in on the manslaughter charge on Sept. 15, 2022. He had no criminal record at the time of the offense.

But he did plead guilty to a charge in 2023. Gilbert, who got out on bail three separate times in the fall of 2022, pleaded guilty to breaching one of his release orders.

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Justice Paul Kowalyshyn granted him a conditional discharge on probation, but also lectured him.

“You breached literally within days. The ink was barely dry,” he said during a sentencing hearing in September 2023.

Gilbert also has a second outstanding case in Sarnia linked to child pornography offenses. Sarnia police announced about a year ago Gilbert, who was out on bail, was arrested on the heels of a sexual assault investigation by its criminal investigations division.

New charges were laid including sexual assault, sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, making child pornography, possessing child pornography, and two counts of failing to comply with a release order, police said. The charges allege Gilbert recorded a video of himself having sex with a girl younger than 16 at some point while out on bail.

A preliminary hearing into that case is set to start in February. The charges haven’t been tested in court.

Hey was denied lease in the new case last April.

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