On April 16, a homeless man has been found guilty of killing another homeless man at Hope Mission’s Herb Jamieson Shelter in Edmonton.
Stanley Jago was found guilty of manslaughter in 54-year-old Thomas Gignac’s death on Jan. 3, 2022.
Jago and Gignac were both staying at the Shelter, which had been open for approximately six months.
They were in the Sobering Room, which can hold up to 150 people. There were about 50 people in the Sobering Room at the time of Gignac’s death.
The entire incident was caught on CCTV video. At about 1 a.m. Gignac got up from his mat to go to the bathroom. He walked between the mats carrying his pants.
After leaving the bathroom, he walked back to his mat using a slightly different route and appears to clumsily navigate between narrow spaces while holding up his pants with one hand and what appears to be an object in the other. At one point, he appears to drop the object and readjusts before continuing to his mat. As Gignac walked past the Jago’s mat, his pants fell to his ankles, which seemed to stop him from progressing further. He lowered himself to the ground and laid down fully on his back near the top corner of the Jago’s mat, near where his head was resting.
Jago woke up and there was an interaction between the two. Another homeless man, who is now deceased, had testified at the preliminary hearing that Gignac appeared intoxicated and didn’t respond when Jago yelled at him.
Jago approached him and punched him about 10 times on the head and kicked him.
Jago went back to his mat and sat down. Gignac sat up partly. He moved to his knees and propped his body up by his arm. Jago walked over to Gignac and punched and kicked Gignac again.
Gignac is seen on the video falling over onto his front side until he was lying flat and face down on the floor.
A medical examiner testified that Gignac’s cause of death was attributed to probable blunt head trauma with contributing factors, which included a history of seizures from a post traumatic brain injury and alcohol abuse, prior infective endocarditis, dyslipidemia, prior myocardial infarction, and methamphetamine use.
Justice A. Loparco said Gignac had other health problems and drug use contributed to a seizure and his death, but death wouldn’t have occurred if it wasn’t for the blunt force trauma to the head.
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