KENTVILLE, N.S. — A man has told a Nova Scotia court that he was in disbelief when he had heard his brother had died after being set on fire while he slept in a bus shelter.
Ron Lawrence read a victim impact statement today at a sentencing hearing for two men who pleaded guilty in the death of his brother Harley, a 62-year-old man who was homeless.
Lawrence says his brother's death was a tragic loss for him and he will be dealing with it for the rest of his life.
Twenty-seven-year-old Daniel Wayne Surette and 26-year-old Kyle David James Fredericks pleaded guilty in February to second-degree murder.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Surette bought $10 worth of gasoline while Fredericks pumped it into a plastic jug on Oct. 23, 2013, in Berwick, a community about 120 kilometres northwest of Halifax.
The statement of facts says Surette poured the gas on Lawrence and either he or Fredericks had set him on fire with a lighter.
After Lawrence's death, local residents said he was using the bus shelter for refuge as temperatures dipped.
In the days that followed, a candlelight vigil was held in his memory where the bus shelter stood.
