Donelan homicide trial set for 2025
First-degree murder case against Joshua John McIsaac, 33, and Erica Lea Ann Blyth, 40, skips preliminary-inquiry phase after prosecution filed preferred indictment
Two of four people accused of killing a Minto man earlier last year will stand trial before a judge and jury in 2025.
The RCMP’s major crime unit charged Joshua John McIsaac, 33, formerly of Penniac, and Erica Lea Ann Blyth, 40, of Newcastle Creek near Chipman, jointly with first-degree murder this summer, alleging they killed Brandon Patrick Donelan, 27, on Jan. 28, 2022, in the Chipman area.
The case was before the Court of King’s Bench at the Burton Courthouse on Monday for motions day to schedule their trial.
Both defendants appeared before Justice Terrence Morrison
Normally, the matter would first proceed to a preliminary inquiry in provincial court to determine if there’s sufficient evidence to set the charge over for trial at the higher level of court.
But the Crown filed a preferred indictment in the case last month under a rarely used section of the Criminal Code of Canada, allowing it to bypass the preliminary inquiry and proceed directly to trial.
Morrison scheduled their King’s Bench judge and jury trial for six weeks beginning April 23, 2025.
The judge also noted that two weeks have been set aside for voir dire hearings on the admissibility of evidence, beginning Jan. 6, 2025.
Blyth and McIsaac will remain in custody until their case concludes.
Also charged with first-degree murder in the Donelan death but in a separate prosecution are Devon Mark Hood, 26, and Matthew David LeBlanc, 29, both of Fredericton.
Their case is due back in Fredericton provincial court Nov. 15 to schedule their preliminary inquiry. It remains to be seen if the Crown is going to file a preferred indictment in that prosecution as well.
All four defendants are subject to court orders barring them from communicating with one another while their cases make their way through the courts.
McIsaac, Hood and LeBlanc are all incarcerated at Dorchester Penitentiary, serving unrelated sentences, while Blyth was remanded this summer to the New Brunswick Women’s Correctional Centre in Miramichi pending the outcome of her case.
Donelan was reported as missing to police Jan. 30, 2022, and the RCMP launched a major search effort on the ground and from the air.
His body was found March 31, 2022, along a snowmobile trail.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.