‘Just disbelief, utter disbelief’
Brandon Patrick Donelan's family pained by halting of prosecutions against four people accused of killing him in Chipman in January 2022 after police error derails murder cases
Family members of Brandon Patrick Donelan say they and their lost loved one have been denied justice now that those accused of killing him in 2022 are no longer facing murder charges.
Crown prosecutor Jeremy Erickson asked Court of King’s Bench Justice Richard Petrie on Friday for stays of proceedings in two separate murder prosecutions against four defendants accused in Donelan’s Jan. 28, 2022, death.
Donelan, 27, was reported as missing in late January 2022, and his body was found along a snowmobile trail in the Grand Lake area about two months later.
Joshua John McIsaac, 35, formerly of Penniac; Erica Lea Ann Blyth, 42, of Newcastle Creek near Chipman; Devon Mark Hood, 27, and Matthew David LeBlanc, 31, both of Fredericton; had all been charged with first-degree murder in Donelan’s death, with the first two being tried jointly in one case and the latter pair set to go to trial together early next year.
But Erickson’s motion in those cases brought those prosecutions to a close.