EDMONTON Canada June 15 2018 —Sheldon Russell Bentley cast his eyes to the floor while his mother wept from the gallery as Justice Paul Belzil found the former security guard guilty of manslaughter and robbery Thursday for stomping a man to death in 2016.

Donald Doucette, 51, had been passed out in an alcove behind the Lucky 97 supermarket at 10725 97 Street on July 31, 2016, when Bentley — then employed as a security guard by the store — stole $20 from his hand and stomped hard on Doucette’s stomach.

The hard sole of his heavy combat boot “made an audible thump,” Crown prosecutor Kristin Logan told court during her closing arguments in Bentley’s trial Wednesday, causing two large tears in the internal soft tissue of his abdomen and massive internal bleeding.

Chief Medical Examiner of Alberta Elizabeth Brooks-Lim testified Doucette, 37, would have been in a significant amount of pain when Bentley and another security guard lifted him to his feet and rested him against a chain-link fence on the opposite side of the alley as two litres of blood pooled in his abdomen.

The average human body, court heard, contains less than five litres of blood.

Doucette, Brooks-Lim said, would have died within minutes, and was likely already dead when two passersby found him unresponsive against the fence.

Doucette’s daughter, Tianna Doucette-Moody, 24, said she was “elated” with the verdict.

“I’m glad there is a guilty conviction,” Doucette-Moody said. “I am glad justice is being served.”

Doucette-Moody said her father had been living with her for two years, going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings twice a week before moving downtown to be closer to treatment for his addiction to alcohol, an addiction she said he battled daily.

“He had just entered an addictions program that week,” she said.

Justice Belzil said Doucette “was in a completely vulnerable position,” lying passed out in the alcove, a corner Bentley admitted he knew was a blind spot for the store’s security cameras.

Doucette-Moody described her father as a loving man.

“He was a very outgoing individual, always joking around. He was very upbeat, very religious,” she said, adding in the year before his death he had started going to church every Sunday with his mother.

For much of his life, Doucette was a chef working mainly in oilfield camps, Doucette-Moody said. Even after he lost his job when he developed severe epilepsy at the age of 45, cooking and baking continued to be his passions.

“His true passion was baking. Bread was the number one thing he enjoyed making all the time,” she said, adding at his memorial service his family gave out copies of his bread recipe to everyone who came.

“It’s just a little way of everybody remembering him,” Doucette-Moody said.

After his death, Doucette-Moody said members of his family trekked to the top of Sulphur Mountain near Banff, Alta., to spread his ashes on what had been one of his favourite places.

“It took us three hours to hike up to the top of Sulphur Mountain, and probably through 10 or 20 switchbacks, this robin followed us the entire way,” said Doucette-Moody. “Some people believe that robins are messengers of the spirits, they’re trying to tell you that your loved one’s there with you.”

“I feel very angry. I don’t think there’s much else I can feel,” Doucette-Moody said. “I think some people in these cases can forgive, in a sense, but I am just not at that point yet.”

Doucette-Moody said the conviction brought her closer to finding a sense of peace.

“Knowing that somebody is paying for the crime and the assault that happened with my dad, it brings me peace knowing he’s not going to do it again and that justice has been served,” she said.

After hugging her son following his conviction, Bentley’s mother Patricia Nelson made a tearful apology to Doucette-Moody.

“I just wish that this teaches Sheldon,” she said.

Nelson said her son had worked in security for more than 12 years and that she still doesn’t understand why he would hurt Doucette.

In his findings of fact, Justice Belzil said Bentley was “angry with his lot in life” and took out his frustration on Doucette.

“He was an authority, and he was to be trusted. Something went wrong that day. I’m hoping he can get this anger or whatever it is out of him, and I wish the Doucettes the best. That’s a young daughter to lose her father,” she said.

“I am very sorry for what happened. No matter what, I am a mother and I love my son, and justice was done today,” Nelson added.

While defence lawyer Amanda Hart-Dowhun tried to argue that Bentley should remain out on bail until his sentencing hearing on Aug. 4, Justice Belzil revoked Bentley’s bail, saying, “this is an extremely grave situation where Donald Doucette’s life was taken.”

Logan indicated that she would likely seek a sentence of around seven years behind bars.

Hart-Dowhun said Bentley had already served 16 months in pretrial custody, meaning he already has more than two years’ credit toward his sentence for time served.

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