Sarnia Jail death: accused’s other charges remained, deceased proclaimed innocence

A second set of criminal charges previously laid against a Sarnia man charged with first-degree murder after police said a Sarnia Jail inmate killed his cellmate have been stayed.

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Douglas Cutbush, 51, of Sarnia was found unresponsive in his cell on Jan. 8 about 3:45 am, police said. Devin Fentie, 33, a Sarnia resident police say was his cellmate, was charged later that day with murder.

Fentie previously was scheduled to go to trial in Sarnia less than a week later on two charges including assaulting a peace officer and assaulting a peace officer with intent to resist lawful arrest. The complainant is a corrections officer, Morgan Tyler, and the alleged incident took place on June 13, 2023, records show.

A two-day trial was set for Jan. 13-14, but it didn’t go ahead as planned.

“Due to recent developments involving Mr. Fentie, the Crown has reviewed the file and determined that, in light of those developments, that it would be in the public’s interest to stay these charges specifically,” assistant Crown attorney Amir Hage said to Justice Mark Poland on Jan. 13.

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Fentie, who was representing himself in that case, initially told the judge he didn’t know what a stay meant, but then he had a private discussion with a lawyer who had been helping him.

A Crown’s request for a stay puts a case on hold, according to the Ontario-based website stepstojustice.ca. The Crown can bring the charges back before the court within one year of the date the charges were stayed, but after a year has passed the Crown can’t bring the charges back, it says.

Poland granted the Crown’s stay. Fentie has since appeared briefly in Sarnia courtrooms multiple times by video from the South West Detention Center near Windsor, including Wednesday, to address the homicide case. It has been adjourned to Feb. 5.

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CUTBUSH PROCLAIMED HIS INNOCENCE

A friend of Cutbush said he was only arrested hours before he died on Jan. 8.

One of three overnight arrests who appeared in Sarnia bail court on Jan. 7, Cutbush became upset and proclaimed his innocence while standing in the prisoner’s box. Court records show he was facing a total of 22 charges laid Dec. 5, 10 linked to disobeying court orders, 11 tied to breaching probation, and one count of criminal harassment.

“I haven’t bothered anyone. These are false allegations again,” he said that day.

He later added: “This is awful,” and, “This is not cool,” but he also apologized to the court. Before he was taken to the Sarnia Jail, Cutbush was told he’d be back in court on Jan. 8 at 8:30 am to schedule a bail hearing. But all inmate video court appearances that morning were postponed following Cutbush’s overnight death and all the charges he was facing were dropped a couple of hours later.

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Many who knew the welder and father of two young twin girls expressed shock, grievance and anger and called for accountability over his sudden death, which has prompted the first homicide probe in the Sarnia Jail in recent memory. A private celebration of life was held for him last weekend.

STATEMENT FROM UNION OFFICIAL

Chad Oldfield, a corrections officer who serves as the Ontario Public Service Employees Union’s ministry employee relations committee co-chair, was asked for comment following the incident at the Sarnia Jail. He said he had little information to provide due to the ongoing criminal and internal investigations there, but issued a statement about rising violence inside many Ontario jails.

“While murders are rare occurrences within the Ontario correctional system, there has been an escalation in the level of violence within institutions. Inmate on inmate assaults have almost doubled since 2007, where we had 2,710 assaults, as compared to 5,288 assaults in 2023,” he wrote.

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Oldfield added assaults against staff also have risen at alarming levels to more than two a day.

“In 2017, we had 545 assaults against staff, as compared to 957 assaults against staff in 2023. When we include other violent incidents such as threats and attempted assaults in those numbers we are looking at more than five incidents per day against our members across the province,” he wrote.

Oldfield also said, in his view, the escalation of violence is linked to the significant limitations on the use of segregation that were introduced without viable alternatives to address violent behavior within correctional institutions.

“This, coupled with the increasing inmate counts and limited bed space, has turned many institutions into powder kegs,” he wrote.

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