Andrei Donet found guilty of 2nd-degree murder of Jannai Dopwell-Bailey
A jury found Andrei Donet guilty of the second-degree murder of 16-year-old Jannai Dopwell-Bailey.
Donet was 18 when he was arrested in connection with the case in 2021. The second-degree murder conviction comes with an automatic life sentence in prison with no possibility of parole before 10 years.
Dopwell-Bailey was fatally stabbed outside a high school in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges district in 2021.
Crown prosecutor Katerine Brabant said Donet's distinctive tattoos seen in a video he published on social media after the attack helped identify him, leading to his arrest. In the video, Donet, wearing a balaclava, wields a can of pepper spray with tattooed fingers as a second boy flashes a knife at the camera.
A minor was also convicted for second-degree murder in December 2023 for the same case. The identity of the teen is protected by a publication ban because he was a minor when he stabbed Dopwell-Bailey.
Though the jury recommended Donet be eligible for parole after 12 years in prison, sentencing will be debated at the end of the month.
Onica John, Jannai Dopwell-Bailey's cousin, says the people found guilty of murdering Jannai should not be eligible for parole. (Onica John/Kwabena Oduro)
Onica John, Dopwell-Bailey's cousin, says a 12-year sentence "means absolutely nothing" to her family, considering the people who murdered him shared a video of the killing online and expressed no remorse.
"The pain will always be there," she said. "This is something we have to live with for the rest of our life."
John said a sentence of that length is a "slap on the wrist" and signals to other people that it's "OK to kill" when you have issues with someone.
"Jannai's death was brutal. It was premeditated. It was planned," she said. "You don't show up to a school with a knife to play."
