STABBED TO DEATH OVER $50

In the summer of 2004, Justin Zaba's sister warned him that the drug
lifestyle would kill him, but he laughed it off.

"No one is going to die," she remembers him saying. "Why would anyone
want to hurt me?"

Weeks later Zaba bled to death behind a north central-area house,
killed for $50.

Thursday, Christopher Dillon Braun pleaded guilty to manslaughter for
the fatal 2004 stabbing and was sentenced to just over six years in
prison.

"I know that whatever sentence is imposed can never restore Justin
Zaba to his family," Court of Queen's Bench Justice Ian McLellan told
Braun. "In that case, no sentence will ever be enough."

Crown prosecutor Alistair Johnston said Zaba, 40, was in north central
Regina on the afternoon of Aug. 25, 2004, when he was approached by
two young acquaintances who asked him to buy drugs for them.

The men gave Zaba $50 and he went inside a house nearby to make the
deal. But when Zaba didn't come out a short time later, the men became
suspicious and discovered he had fled through another door.

Braun and two other men tracked Zaba to 1224 Angus St., and when a man
in the house refused to let them in, Braun kicked down a back door and
ran upstairs to find Zaba.

Moments later Zaba stumbled down the stairs and out the back door,
where he died of a single stab wound.

A 16-year-old male was arrested and charged with murder the next week.
Braun and another teen male were charged with murder almost a year
later. By that time, Braun had stabbed another person in an unrelated
incident, and was sentenced to 18 months in jail for that assault.

Braun's sentence expired in January, and he's been in custody since
then awaiting trial on the Zaba matter.

With time on remand considered as double, which is the usual practice
by the courts, Braun's sentence for the killing will be 41/2 years.

The sentence was a joint submission by the Crown and defence.

Speaking in court on Thursday, defence lawyer Tim Brown said Braun
feels deep remorse for what he did and wants to change his life before
it's too late.

Brown described his client, now 24, as a man who had a good childhood
until the age of 13, when his adoptive mother remarried and moved to
British Columbia. Braun stayed in Regina and ended up in a downward
spiral of foster care, "the hood lifestyle" and drugs, Brown told court.

By 15, Braun was doing cocaine and from there moved on to crack and IV
drug use. By 18, Braun was shooting morphine on a daily basis, and had
developed a $3,000 to $4,000 a month drug habit.

"It was at that time Mr. Braun turned to a life of crime in order to
pay for the drugs he was using," Brown said.

Drugs plagued Braun's victim as well. A statement written by Zaba's
sister recalls Zaba as an athletic boy who moved to Toronto after
university and had great success working in the publishing industry
before his life took a sudden turn.

"Then somehow Justin made a wrong decision and tried cocaine," she
wrote.

The family tried to help Zaba with his addiction for several years,
but he was never able to kick the drug.

"The crime of murder has taken my baby brother Justin," she wrote.
"(It's) taken my secure world and rocked it to the
foundations."

The murder charge has been stayed against one of Braun's co-accused.
The other is still facing charges. The youths cannot be named because
of their ages.