Saskatoon, Canada — The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has upheld the first-degree murder conviction of Leo Roy Daniels, a Saskatoon man sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 68-year-old Richard Fernuk. Daniels, who was found guilty in September 2022 following a judge-alone trial, sought to overturn his conviction on claims that his defense of intoxication was not adequately considered.
Daniels received the mandatory life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years after being convicted at the Saskatoon Court of King’s Bench. His appeal contested the judge’s failure to consider his intoxicated state and questioned the certainty of his intent to commit murder.
On August 3, 2019, Fernuk was discovered deceased in his Exhibition neighborhood apartment, having been restrained with cords tied around his neck to a kitchen chair, leading to asphyxiation. The tragic scene was believed by the prosecution to have resulted from a robbery and confinement by Daniels.
During the trial, evidence revealed that Daniels met Fernuk near a gas station in the early hours of August 2, after Fernuk had been at a hospital for a heart condition treatment. Fernuk, attempting to charge his phone and call for a ride, encountered Daniels, who later testified to leaving Fernuk alive after robbing him in a nearby field. Daniels denied entering Fernuk’s apartment, suggesting a break-in by another individual, despite the absence of forced entry.
Justice Heather MacMillan-Brown, presiding over the trial, determined the murder occurred during the act of confinement, fulfilling the criteria for first-degree murder. Surveillance footage and DNA evidence linking Daniels to the crime scene further supported the prosecution’s case.
In his appeal, Daniels’s defense argued the trial judge ignored testimonies about his impaired condition due to consuming methamphetamine and significant amounts of alcohol prior to meeting Fernuk. However, inconsistencies in Daniels’ recollection of events weakened this defense. His appeal attorneys noted that although Daniels claimed comprehensive memory lapses on cross-examination, he had earlier professed clear recall of the events.
The appeal court, led by Justice Naheed Bardai and joined by Justices Jeffery Kalmakoff and Meghan McCreary, found no merit in Daniels’s arguments. They concluded that the evidence presented did not substantiate a level of intoxication that would negate the necessary criminal intent for murder.
Furthermore, Bardai highlighted that Daniels’s trial lawyer did not pursue a defense of “advanced intoxication” which might have questioned his ability to form intent, and noted that even without the defense lawyer’s concession of the nature of the crime as first-degree murder, the judge’s conclusions were firmly based on credible evidence assessments.
This decision reinforces the trial findings and supports the continuity of Daniels’s life sentence, closing another chapter in a case that has captured local attention due to its tragic and disturbing details.