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Dean Thomas Hathaway sentenced to three years for manslaughter in Duncan stabbing

Hathaway will serve an additional year for firearms offences
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Dean Thomas Hathaway received a sentence of four years for manslaughter and firearms charges (File photo)

Dean Thomas Hathaway received a sentence of four years for manslaughter and firearms charges in the Duncan Courthouse on Sept. 12.

Hathaway, 48, received three years for the death of Brad Goode after Goode was stabbed four times in Hathaway’s Duncan home on the evening of Sept. 14, 2016.

He also received one year, that he will serve consecutively with his manslaughter sentence, for a number of firearm offences, including having prohibited weapons, in his possession.

The weapons were found at the same time police arrived at the house on Sept. 14, 2016, to investigate Goode’s death.

Both Crown and defence counsels provided provincial court Judge Christine Lowe a joint submission and sentencing recommendations after Hathaway pleaded guilty to the charges.

Crown counsel Brad Tomlin told the court that Hathaway and Goode had been close friends before Goode’s death.

Both were members of the Duncan chapter of Freemasons and Goode, who was living on the Lower Mainland, was spending the night at Hathaway’s house after a Freemason’s meeting that night.

Tomlin said both men began drinking heavily and when Hathaway’s wife went to bed at approximately 10:30 p.m., she said both men were getting along and having a good time.

She got up at some point in the early morning hours and checked on the men, who were still drinking and getting along.

Tomlin said Hathaway’s wife went back to bed, and awoke a little later to the sound of her husband snoring in the room where he and Goode had been drinking.

She said she found Goode on his back on the floor with her husband laying asleep over the top of his legs.

Tomlin said Hathaway’s wife saw blood on Goode and when she tried to wake her husband up, she was unable to get a response out of him.

She said she saw three stab wounds to Goode’s chest and called emergency services.

Tomlin said the police that attended the scene noted that Hathaway was heavily intoxicated, and had no recollection of what happened to Goode.

The attending ambulance crew that went to the house tried to revive Goode, but he was pronounced dead soon after arriving at the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.

Tomlin said there was no evidence of a physical altercation between the two men, and no evidence that anyone else, other than Hathaway’s wife, was in the house at the time.

Tomlin pointed out that Mrs. Hathaway was never a suspect in the case.

“Mr. Hathaway made his guilty plea with no understanding of the circumstances under which Goode died,” he said.

“Mr. Hathaway had no injuries and Mr. Goode had no wounds to suggest he defended himself.”

Defence counsel Richard Neary said the incident is “inexplicable” to everyone who knows his client.

Neary said that Hathaway has no recollection of the incident to this day.

“He was completely shocked by what transpired and hoped that someone else was responsible, but he has accepted that he did it even though he has no history of any kind of violence,” Neary said.

“My client is incredibly remorseful and is wracked with grief.”

When Judge Lowe passed sentence on Hathaway, she said the sentence won’t undo the harm done, or the tragedy and grief to everybody close to both men.

“No one will ever know why it happened. It’s a real tragedy,” she said.

Hathaway was led away in handcuffs following his sentencing to begin serving his time.



robert.barron@cowichanvalleycitizen.com

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Robert Barron

About the Author: Robert Barron

Since 2016, I've had had the pleasure of working with our dedicated staff and community in the Cowichan Valley.
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