Nobody knows, not even his killer, why cab driver Gary Newman was brutally stabbed multiple times and left to die on a dark country road.

Yesterday in a Barrie courtroom, his convicted murderer, Kelley Thackeray, said he didn’t know why he did it and was handed a life sentence.

“There is no reason or explanation for what I have done,” he said at his sentencing hearing, standing in the prisoner’s box dressed in a blue dress shirt with his black hair slicked back in a ponytail.

“I ask for the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and I ask, maybe someday, for the forgiveness of his family. I’m sorry.”

Even the Crown and defense lawyers admitted they are baffled as to why a seemingly normal man would commit murder.

“There is nothing in his background that could make anyone believe that he could be capable of committing something like this,” said his lawyer, James Flemming, in his submissions.

“He came up with this absolutely hair-brained scheme and it doesn’t make any sense. It’s so bizarre.”

Even the $60 that Newman earned that night to support his wife and four children was left untouched.

The court heard Thackeray may be resentful of his Aboriginal-Canadian heritage. He was also a high school football star and graduated with honours.

The court also heard that Thackeray was withdrawn and overworked as a factory worker and feeling overwhelmed with financial and emotional pressures of impending fatherhood.

Flemming said that’s when his client came up with a plan to rob a cab driver in June 2001.

Armed with a knife and a pair of work gloves, Thackeray drove to a phone booth in the south end of Barrie and called a cab.

Once in the back seat, he tricked Newman into pulling over on a country road, where he attacked him from behind and stabbed him in the face, neck and throat while the 50-year-old driver tried to block the blows with his hands.

“He was pleading for his life,” said the killer in a statement to police after he was arrested.

“A normal person would have stopped, but I just kept going.”

Flemming told the judge there is hope for Thackeray to someday become a productive member of society and asked for the minimum sentence of 10 years for second-degree murder.

He also asked the judge to consider a lighter sentence because Thackeray is an Aboriginal-Canadian.

But Crown attorney Kate Hull asked for a longer jail term.

“This was a brutal act on a vulnerable victim,” she said.

“A sentence must deter other persons from committing similar offences against cab drivers who work at night, alone, and carry money, which makes them vulnerable.”

While Thackeray received a life sentence for second-degree murder, Justice Michelle Fuerst will decide Nov. 17 if he will be eligible for parole.

There is no guarantee that any prisoner will receive parole.

note:
Second-degree murder - life sentence with no possibility of parole for at least ten years. Inmates incarcerated for second degree murder become eligible for consideration for unescorted temporary absences and day parole three years before their full parole eligibility date.  Mr. Thackeray did not have a criminal history and it is possible for him to do a fraction of the time and be out walking the streets in a few short years