Christopher Lake father charged with killing the man accused of killing his son

By Susan McNeil/Nigel Maxwell

The father of a man beaten to death in an RV in Christopher Lake now stands accused of killing the man who was charged with killing his son.

Reginald Durocher is the father of Christopher Durocher, who was killed by multiple blows to the head late in 2016. Reginald appeared in Prince Albert Provincial Court on Thursday morning, facing a charge of first-degree murder.

The RCMP had previously charged Ryan David Clark with killing Christopher.

A Court of King’s Bench jury in Prince Albert found Clark guilty of second-degree murder, but Clark appealed the conviction. In the ensuing legal battle, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, but the decision was not unanimous.

A dissenting vote allowed for further appeal, and late in 2022 the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the verdict and ordered a new trial.

The high court said that the trial judge erred when instructing the jury and did not warn them adequately about the frailties of eyewitness testimony

A new trial was ordered but had not yet been set and Clark’s next court date was scheduled for May 10 for a pre-trial conference.

On Tuesday, Clark was killed outside a liquor store at Northside, which is south of the Christopher Lake turnoff. He was the victim of a direct hit by a pickup truck, which was captured on a nearby store’s surveillance cameras.

Durocher’s lawyer, Garth Bendig, indicated his intention to have a bail hearing at Court of King’s Bench on April 25. The case is back in court May 3.