SASKATOON – Two men allegedly involved in a double murder that that took place 14 years ago appeared in Saskatoon Provincial Court June 29. A third man is charged in one of the murders and was also back in court.
Spencer Whiteman [Bird], 22, and Morgan Doucette, 33, were brutally stabbed to death months apart in 2009 and Saskatoon police solved the cold cases with arrests earlier this year.
Dexter Laplante, and a man who was a young offender at the time of one of the murders, are both charged with two counts of first-degree murder in Whiteman [Bird] and Doucette's deaths. A third man, Michael Wayne Gamble, is charged with one count of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in Doucette’s death.
Whiteman was Saskatoon’s first homicide of 2009. Media reports had said that police believed Whiteman was stabbed after an altercation in a west-side apartment in the 300 block of Avenue T on Jan. 1, 2009. Residents said the fight started in a suite on the second floor. Another man was also stabbed at the apartment but he had survived, say police.
Doucette was stabbed at about 3 a.m. on Nov. 16, 2009, in a two-storey house in the 400 block of Avenue H in the Riversdale neighbourhood. He was the city’s sixth homicide victim in 2009.
A neighbour had told reporters back then that the police were at the home “almost every second day.” They said the people at the house would sometimes shout at passersby or fight among themselves in the yard.
Laplante, who was charged in May, is back in Saskatoon court July 27 to have his matter spoken to.
Gamble, from Saskatoon, is back in court July 11.
The 32-year-old man, who can’t be identified because he was a young offender at the time of one of the murders, was arrested April 12 in Grande Cache, Alta., by Major Crimes investigators. He is back in Saskatoon court July 18 to speak to his matter.
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