A man who confessed to impulsively slitting the throat of a friend at Port Place Shopping Centre in Nanaimo has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Sean Carl John Patterson, 38, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Serguei Chiliakhov on Jan 22, 2023. Patterson pleaded guilty last December to the lesser offence of manslaughter and was sentenced Wednesday in sa国际传媒 Supreme Court.
Patterson slashed Chiliakhov in the neck during a brief interaction outside the mall around 7 p.m., according to a statement of facts agreed to by Patterson, his lawyer and Crown prosecutors. Chiliakhov suffered massive blood loss from the deep gash, leading to his death.
Patterson addressed the court during his sentencing to offer an apology to Chiliakhov’s family.
“I’m sorry for the harm and grievance I’ve caused you. If I could take it back, I would,” he said.
On the evening of Chiliakhov’s death, Patterson was angry after being denied entry to a nearby casino because he wouldn’t allow security staff to search his bag. He had been drinking and using methamphetamine with another man, according to the statement of facts read to the court by Crown prosecutor Nicholas Barber.
At the time, Chiliakhov was in the mall parking lot trying to sell drugs. He had a conversation with two people. After a few minutes, Patterson joined them and the two others left.
Patterson and Chiliakhov were captured on video surveillance walking together before briefly disappearing from the camera’s view. Just four seconds after disappearing from view, Chiliakhov was captured on video running toward the mall’s entrance. Patterson fled the scene.
A bystander saw Chiliakhov holding his throat and bleeding. She helped him into the mall and held paper towels to his wound.
When officers arrived, they saw Chiliakhov lying in a large pool of blood. He was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital.
After speaking with witnesses who were at the mall at the time of the stabbing and reviewing video footage, police arrested Patterson on Feb. 1. In an emotional interview the following day, Patterson confessed to the killing, according to the statement of facts.
He told police he bought the knife used in the killing the same day but had no intention of hurting anyone with it.
When he was walking with Chiliakhov, Patterson asked him if he wanted to see his knife.
“Mr. Chiliakhov said: ‘Let’s see it. If you give it to me, I’m going to stab you with it,’ ” Barber said, reading from the statement of facts. “Then Mr. Patterson just didn’t think and struck Mr. Chiliakhov with the knife. He was sorry for ruining people’s lives. He was friends with Mr. Chiliakhov.”
In a “thoughtful and eloquent” victim impact statement that was not read for the court, a mother-figure to the victim expressed her love for Chiliakhov, said Justice Douglas Thompson.
“The depth of her loss is apparent,” he said.
Thompson accepted a joint submission for a seven-year sentence put forward by Crown and defence. Patterson has been in custody since Feb. 1, 2023, and with credit for time in pre-sentencing custody, he faces another five years in prison.
“This homicide happened suddenly and it is impossible to explain other than as an outcome of illicit drug use coinciding with access to a deadly weapon,” Thompson said.
Thompson said a psychological assessment of Patterson and letters submitted by his family, friends and coworkers “paint a picture of a man who is fundamentally good, kind and caring.”
He accepted a psychologist’s opinion that Patterson’s risk of reoffending is tied to whether he is able to avoid misusing alcohol and drugs.
Patterson was a bright child who suffered emotional abuse by his stepfather and possible physical abuse by an older brother, lawyer Kelly Bradshaw said. Around Grade 8, he began to withdraw and gravitate toward a group of kids who drank and used drugs, starting him down the path to alcohol addiction, Bradshaw said.
He has been off drugs and alcohol since he was taken into custody on Feb. 1 and is committed to taking advantage of courses and programs offered in prison to remain sober, she said.
“He knows he has to make changes in his life so that when he is eventually released from jail, he doesn’t just fall back,” she said.
