Teen who pleaded guilty gave 'false hope' after Tyson MacDonald died: Crown

A sentencing hearing is underway in a packed Georgetown courtroom for a teenager who pleaded guilty to misleading police after Tyson MacDonald disappeared in eastern P.E.I. in mid-December.

The 17-year-old's body was later found in a wooded area, and two youths were charged in his death.

Opening the sentencing hearing, Crown prosecutor Jeff MacDonald said the teen being sentenced "frustrated the efforts of all those searching for Tyson" after he vanished, and gave the community "false hope" that he was alive and well somewhere.

A publication ban under the Youth Criminal Justice Act prevents CBC News from naming either of the two accused people, as well as any details that could lead to their being identifiable to the public.

As the victim, Tyson MacDonald's name was also covered by the Youth Criminal Justice Act, but the family gave permission for CBC News to identify him.

As has happened for every court appearance in the case so far, friends and relatives of MacDonald marched outside the courthouse Friday morning holding signs calling for justice for the Montague Regional High School Grade 12 student.

Another view of the Georgetown courthouse on Friday morning. (Gabrielle Drumond/Radio-Canada)

They and others later crowded into the courthouse, but an official had to stop letting people in, apologizing and saying he "can't stretch the walls" of the room.

The teen who pleaded guilty to misleading police was led into the courthouse in shackles, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans.

A number of victim impact statements were read out in court to let the accused and the community hear "the pain that's been caused" and mark "a path forward for accountability," the Crown prosecutor said.

"He made the decision to be selfish and he lied," Tyson's sister Brittany wrote of the teen being sentenced. "He took away my family's opportunity to say goodbye."

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School principal writes of impact

Another statement was read out on behalf of Montague Regional High School principal Robyn MacDonald.

"Our school has suffered loss many times before," she wrote in the statement. "We've lost students, staff members, and community members. One of our staff members has lost 10 students during their career at MRHS."

People carrying signs calling for justice for Tyson MacDonald walk outside the courthouse in Georgetown on Friday morning. (Steve Bruce/CBC)

Yet MacDonald's death was different, she wrote.

The principal described "a barrage of daily trauma" as the search for the student continued — and eventually, when his body was found.

Robyn Macdonald went went from class to class that day, letting students know the grim news.

"We were just holding on," she wrote. "Sometimes it feels like we're still holding on."

Wasn't present at time of death

The agreed statement of facts in the case, read out in court when the teen being sentenced pleaded guilty, reveals more about what happened before and after MacDonald disappeared on the evening of Dec. 14, 2023.

It says the other teen told police that the teen being sentenced Friday:

• was not present when MacDonald was killed,

• did not help move his body, and

• did not know MacDonald was dead when he backed up the first teen's story of MacDonald being picked up by a young woman in a car the night he disappeared.

The statement also said the teen "felt pressured" by the other youth to give false statements to police on two occasions. Although "there were no explicit threats of violence," the statement said, the teen told police he knew the other boy "had access to various firearms."

The other teen, who faces charges of first-degree murder and interfering with human remains, has not yet entered a plea. His case is due back in court in June.

The teen being sentenced Friday was initially charged with those two offences as well, but those charges were stayed when he pleaded guilty in February to charges related to misleading police and giving false statements, in the form of saying a young woman with a flower tattoo on her left arm picked MacDonald up in a dark-coloured Honda Civic the evening he vanished.

That story led police and community members on a fruitless search for someone who didn't exist, until cellphone records pointed them in the right direction, the agreed statement of facts said.

Tyson MacDonald's sister Sierra, who wrote in her victim impact statement that the teen being sentenced "did not pull the trigger, but he did lie to police."

That act contributed to the agony her family was experiencing, she said, and "wasted hundreds of people's time…The longer the hunt went on, the more it seemed like there was no truth to the story."

"We will never know why you told the story you did," Ian Nicholson, the father of a friend of Tyson MacDonald's wrote in an impact statement, addressing the teen being sentenced. "You had everything to lose, and nothing to gain… We are all left puzzled."