EDMONTON -- An Alberta Court of Queen's Bench judge has sentenced the man who punched and killed an Edmonton flower store owner to six years in prison for manslaughter.
Jordan Cushnie pleaded guilty on May 24, 2019, in the death of Iain Armstrong.
Armstrong who owned and worked at Bunches Flowers outlet in Southgate Centre tried to stop Cushnie from robbing a cash box from a nearby kiosk in April 2018.
Judge Eldon Simpson accepted the recommendations of the Crown and defence for a six-year sentence.
"Nothing that I can do or say, or the sentence I impose, will in any way assuage the grief," Simpson said.
"I expect that if you walked into Bunches asking for a favour from Mr Armstrong and some help with your homelessness, he'd have probably have helped you. That's the real tragedy of his loss. That's the sort of individual he was," Simpson told Cushnie.
"The only way for your to repay that loss is to make some changes."
Judge Simpson noted Cushnie was on probation at the time of Armstrong's death, that he fled both the scene and the city, and also has a lengthy criminal record which included other violent crimes.
He was also sentenced to three years for robbery as well as one year for breach of probation, with both of those to be served concurrently to the six-year manslaughter sentenece.
Cushnie has been in custody since his arrest, and now has 30 months remaining in his sentence with credit for time already served.
Court heard Armstrong, who was 61, fell down and hit his head on a corner of the kiosk after he was punched.
Armstrong was taken off life support a few days later.
Cushnie, who had been smoking crystal meth before entering the mall, fled the city before being later arrested near Lac La Biche.
Armstrong's wife, Sharon Armstrong, said in a victim impact statement that the morning of April 17, 2018, was a normal one, with her husband heading off to work at their family-owned business.
“In a few hours, my world would collapse,” she said, explaining she received the phone call from a shop employee and immediately called her husband's brother and business partner, Eric Armstrong, who was nearby.
When she arrived at the mall, she said she saw the building surrounded by emergency vehicles.
“I felt my heart drop,” she said.
She was diverted to the University of Alberta Hospital, where she was met by police and called her son and daughter to meet her.
“We were all so scared and confused,” said Armstrong, adding that doctors started using words like “dire, catastrophic” to describe her husband's injuries.
With files from the Canadian Press
