Community supervision conditions approved for P.E.I. young offender sentenced in Tyson MacDonald's death

Community supervision conditions have been approved in P.E.I. Supreme Court for a young offender scheduled to be released from custody next month after serving a two-year sentence in the 2023 shooting death of Tyson Blair MacDonald.

The young man and a male co-accused cannot be named under a Youth Criminal Justice Act publication ban. The young offender did not appear in court on Oct. 16 for the hearing. Instead, legal-aid lawyer Thane MacEachern appeared on his behalf.

The young offender was sentenced in P.E.I. Supreme Court sitting as youth justice court on Nov. 22, 2024, to two years in secured custody followed by one year of community supervision for manslaughter and a concurrent sentence of 18 months in secured custody and six months of community supervision for interfering with human remains.

The offender pleaded guilty to the charges on Oct. 4, 2024. He was originally charged with first-degree murder but instead agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter.

The co-accused pleaded guilty and was sentenced in youth justice court in Georgetown on April 19, 2024, to four months of open custody and two months of community supervision for public mischief for misleading an RCMP officer to continue an investigation by giving false statements to divert suspicion from himself.

The co-accused was also sentenced to two months of open custody and one month of community supervision for willfully obstructing an RCMP officer with false statements or misleading police.

The offender, the co-accused and MacDonald were all 17 years old on Dec. 14, 2023 when the offences were committed.

According to the facts previously read in court, MacDonald was reported missing to the RCMP by his mother on the morning of Dec. 15, 2023, after he didn’t return home the previous night. The last time MacDonald’s mother spoke to her son was on Dec. 14, 2023, at 3:30 p.m.

On Dec. 15, 2023, the offender and co-accused provided statements to police and gave the false story that they dropped off MacDonald the previous evening on the Line Road and saw him get into a vehicle with an unknown female.

They gave further statements to police during the investigation. The offender gave the same false story to MacDonald’s mother. Based on the offender’s cellphone data, police went to an area off the Greek River Road and discovered a large amount of blood belonging to MacDonald.

On Dec. 19, 2023, the offender and co-accused were both arrested at the Montague RCMP detachment. The offender told police that on Dec. 14, 2023, at his family residence, he picked up a shotgun and reckless as to whether the safety was on or off, pointed it at MacDonald, pulled the trigger and fatally shot him in the left side of his face.

The offender wrapped MacDonald in a mat and left his remains in a rural area off the Greek River Road. The offender then picked up the co-accused and they went to a hockey game in Charlottetown.

The offender admitted to police that he later moved MacDonald’s remains from the Greek River Road to the Line Road in Kings County. The offender showed police on a map where the body was located. On Dec. 20, 2023, at 2:57 a.m., MacDonald’s remains were found by police at the Line Road location.

The community supervision conditions for one year were a joint submission from Crown attorney John Diamond and MacEachern on Oct. 16 that were approved by Justice Jonathan Coady. The conditions were not read in court. The offender is scheduled to be released from custody at the P.E.I. Youth Centre at the conclusion of his two-year sentence on Nov. 22.

Terrence McEachern is a justice reporter for The Guardian in Prince Edward Island. He can be reached at tmceachern@postmedia.com.