The appeal of a murder conviction has been rejected.
John Thomas Shaoulle was found guilty of first-degree murder by a Prince Albert judge in late 2013.
He received a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Margaret Sewap’s body had been found in a secluded area of Prince Albert two years prior.
She had been violently sexually assaulted before her body was left there.
The grisly case detailed how Sewap’s body was found burned and naked in the winter of 2011.
Brian Pfefferle represents Shaoulle, and says even though Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeals has dismissed the file, there’s a chance it will go to the Supreme Court.
That’s because one of the appeal judges wasn’t satisfied that all the evidence proved Shaoulle’s guilt.
Justice J.A. Klebuc differed from his peers, citing three different reasons.
First, he wrote the circumstantial evidence presented at trial was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Secondly, Klebuc stated there was no clear motive for Shaoulle to kill Sewap.
Finally, Klebuc wrote that evidence of how Shaoulle behaved after the offence had been committed required the “inference by the trial judge that the appellant behaved as a guilty person ‘would,’” but that inference wasn’t reasonably supported by all of the evidence in the case.
Klebuc stated the link between that behavior and Shaoulle’s guilt couldn’t be made without “having to draw speculative inferences of the kind that in the past have led to innocent people being wrongfully convicted and incarcerated until scientific evidence established their innocence.”
Pffeferle says they may pursue an appeal at Canada’s highest court.