A young man originally facing a charge of second-degree murder has been convicted instead of manslaughter in a shocking attack on a Surrey bus that left a teenage boy dead.
The judge’s verdict prompted sobs inside a packed New Westminster courtroom from the victim’s family and friends, who carried white roses in the teen’s memory.
Burnaby resident Kaiden Mintenko, born in 2003, was found guilty Thursday for the April 11, 2023, stabbing death of the 17-year-old boy. The victim can not be named because of a court-imposed publication ban.
Mintenko was arrested in the days following the attack, which took place aboard a bus on King George Boulevard in Surrey.
The court heard that Mintenko targeted the teen over false rumours, punching him in the side of his head six times before stabbing him with a large knife.
Justice Terry Schultes told the court that the victim “repeatedly cried out for help before losing consciousness face down on the floor of the bus, bleeding profusely.”
The court heard that an emotional Mintenko eventually confessed to police saying: “He wasn’t supposed to die … I didn’t want it at all. I didn’t want to kill him.”
Mintenko also said: “I knew I was caught from the start.”
In addition to drinking that night, Mintenko had apparently used marijuana, but the judge didn’t believe Mintenko was as severely impaired as he later told police.
However, the judge said when he considered all the evidence, he was left with reasonable doubt about intent and convicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter. The decision prompted tears and disappointment from the victim’s friends and family.
Mintenko will return to court April 10 to fix a date for sentencing.
The shocking attack left the teenage victim’s family devastated, with the boy’s mother telling CTV News last year that it felt “like time stopped” after her son was killed.
In the days following the attack, homicide investigators told reporters the suspect was “known to police” and that he and the victim knew each other “through a third party.”
“After all these years of being a police officer, I still struggle with the senselessness of certain crimes,” Surrey RCMP assistant commissioner Brian Edwards told reporters at the time. “This is one of those crimes.”
