Alberta man who shattered victim’s skull with baseball bat free after 18 months
Date: Mar 27, 2008 11:09 AM
PUBLICATION: Medicine Hat News
DATE: 2008.03.26
BYLINE: cpw
WORD COUNT: 421

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Alberta man who shattered victim’s skull with baseball bat free after 18 months

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MEDICINE HAT, Alta. _ The family of a man whose skull was shattered with the swing
of a baseball bat is shocked that his attacker is free after spending 18 1/2 months
in jail.

“We felt he should be charged with attempted murder but he was charged with aggravated
assault, because they (the Crown) felt they could prove it and could get a six-year
sentence,” Charlene Dean, the victim’s mother, said Tuesday outside
court.

Shayne Lebert-Dean died about five months after the attack, but a medical examiner
concluded it could not be considered a result of the attack. Lebert-Dean died of
an overdose of prescription painkillers.

Kayle Libke of Brooks, Alta., pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced
to 37 months in jail. But he was given double credit for the time he spent in custody
pre-trial, so the sentence was deemed satisfied by time served.

Dean had been told that after several delays which included accommodating the accused’s
dismissal of two lawyers, the Crown would be working toward a resolution with defence
counsel.

“At that point, we were more or less told that the Crown would expect nothing less
than a four-year sentence,” said Dean, who came from Windsor, Ont., with
her daughter Roxanne Mason to attend the sentencing.

“I don’t think that anything could be long enough,” said Mason.

Court heard that the 21-year-old victim was dating Libke’s former girlfriend
and on Sept. 11, 2006, accepted a phone invitation to a fight. Lebert-Dean walked
a short distance to meet Libke on the front lawn of a mutual friend’s home.

The two men were exchanging angry words when Libke produced a baseball bat, swung
once and struck Lebert-Dean in the side of the head.

“He suffered a shattered skull and fell to the ground in seizures,” reported
Crown prosecutor Ramona Robins.

Libke, 28, fled but was arrested by RCMP later that day and had been in custody
since then.

Lebert-Dean was taken to hospital and later flown by helicopter to Calgary. His
parents flew to Alberta from their home in Windsor, to care for their son while
he slowly recovered in hospital. When he was well enough, they took him to Ontario
where his medical treatment, physical therapy and speech therapy continued.

Court heard it was his greatest wish to return to Alberta where his pregnant girlfriend
lived.

But his wish was not fulfilled. He died on Feb. 1, 2007, after returning from a
doctor’s appointment where he was prescribed painkillers for severe headaches
he’d been suffering since the attack.

Libke faces a lifetime ban on possessing firearms and was ordered to submit a DNA
sample. He was also sentenced to serve one year of probation. One of the conditions
of probation is that he have no contact with his former girlfriend and Lebert-Dean’s
child. Libke is the father of the woman’s older child.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !