Prosecutor asked for five years. Judge sentenced two years under house arrest.
EDMONTON, Alberta––Playing an abusive upbringing and Métis and Mi’kmaq First Nations heritage as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, defense lawyer Evan McIntyre on September 3, 2026 won former Cane Corso owner Crystal Jean MacDonald, 46, a two-year sentence under house arrest for the April 1, 2024 mauling death of Kache Grist, 11, at her home in the Summerside district of south Edmonton.
“MacDonald,” reported Jonny Wakefield for the Edmonton Journal, “stared straight ahead and wiped her eyes with a tissue as Court of King’s Bench Justice Eric Macklin sentenced her for criminal negligence.
“Crown prosecutors had asked that MacDonald serve five years in prison,” Wakefield recounted, “arguing she had ample warning the dogs were dangerous but refused to have them euthanized.”
“No need to separate her from society”
Pronounced Macklin, “There is no need to separate her from society.”
“Macklin also banned MacDonald from owning dogs for life,” Wakefield summarized, “but said she could apply in 10 years to have the ban lifted. MacDonald will serve the sentence at her home in Penticton, British Columbia, where she relocated in the wake of the attack.
“Macklin noted MacDonald has no criminal record,” Wakefield continued, and said her blameworthiness is partially mitigated by racism and abuse she suffered” due to her First Nations childhood experiences, “including poverty, physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and child welfare involvement.”
Macklin appeared to find much less by way of extenuating circumstance for MacDonald in convicting her on May 22, 2026.
“Throughout her testimony,” Macklin said from the bench then, “I generally found the accused to be evasive and defensive whenever her actions were questioned. She consistently attempted to either cast blame elsewhere or minimize her own responsibilities.”
What happened
Explained Canadian Press writer Daniela Germano, “Court heard the dogs killed Kache when he was in Edmonton visiting his father for spring break. The boy lived the rest of the year in Osoyoos, B.C.,” with his mother, Kendrah Wong, a recovering addict.
“MacDonald and the boy’s father, Wesley Grist, were roommates at the time,” Germano said. “Before Kache’s death, the dogs had killed two pets and injured three adults, including MacDonald.”
A previous victim, massage therapist Tina Kelepouris, “testified that the dogs, named Khaos and Kairo, attacked her in MacDonald’s backyard less than two months before Kache’s death,” continued Germano.
“Kelepouris was in hospital for four days with three broken ribs, a collapsed lung and more than a dozen stitches throughout her body.”
(See Killer Cane Corso owner convicted, but pit bulls & Cane Corsos kill 3 more.)
Second no jail time verdict in Alberta fatality
Judicial leniency toward MacDonald echoed the lenient sentencing of Denis Bagarić, 33, of Calgary, Alberta, whose three pit bulls on June 5, 2022 killed 86-year-old Betty Ann “Rusty” Williams in a back alley behind their homes.
Bagaric was on May 6, 2024 fined $18,000 and prohibited from owning animals for 15 years, but received no prison time, after pleading guilty on February 21, 2024 to City of Calgary bylaw violations including allowing animals to run at large and owning animals who attacked a person causing severe injury.
Bagarić admitted that one of his three pit bulls, Smoki, killed Williams, and in February 2024 allowed that pit bull to be euthanized.
Bagarić and his partner, Talyn Calkins, were initially each charged with a dozen offenses. Bagarić pleaded guilty to the two offenses for which he was sentenced as part of a plea bargain, which included that all charges against Calkins were dropped.
(See Calgary pit bull death perp Bagarić fined $18,000; U.S. perp gets 35 years.)
(Instagram photo)
Well-known to police
Unlike MacDonald, Bagarić was well-known to police.
Reportedly born in Croatia, Bagarić apparently emigrated to Canada with his family in childhood. As a high school senior in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Bagarić on January 29, 2007 at about 7:15 a.m. crashed a 1990 BMW, killing his passenger, 16-year-old Quinn Christine Tewsley-Schwabe.
Police reported that “a high rate of speed and alcohol appear to have played a factor in the crash,” according to James Neeley of the Medicine Hat News.
Two and a half years later, on December 29, 2009, Bagarić and co-accused Nicole Neilsen, along with two other men, were arrested in Medicine Hat in alleged possession of 83 grams of cocaine, nearly six pounds of marijuana, and an illegally possessed nine-millimeter semi-automatic firearm.
Would-be pit bull “influencer”
Pleading guilty in September 2010, Bagarić in December 2010 received a 90-day intermittent sentence (meaning that the time was not to be consecutively served) for possession of 300 grams of marijuana.
By 2014 Bagarić had become a heavily tattooed body-builder, reportedly employed as a welder in the Alberta oil fields.
A January 2, 2019 Medicine Hat News photo showed Bagarić and Ashley LaCosse of the local Anytime Fitness exercise gym walking pit bulls named Dibo and Kalle.
A web page posted by the India-based “media influencer” promotion company Viral Pitch indicated that Bagarić hoped to become an influencer on the topic of pit bulls.
Wrongful death lawsuits
Lawsuits alleging wrongful death after dog attacks are almost unheard of in Canada; even lawsuits seeking compensation for personal injuries are rare, filed less than a third as often relative to reported attacks as in the U.S.
This is partially because the Canadian public health system covers most medical expenses for victims, but partially also because the Supreme Court of Canada in 1978 established an inflation-adjusted and regionally adjusted upper limit on the dollar amount that can be awarded in a court case for non-pecuniary general damages, such as pain and suffering.
This cap currently is about $390,000 Canadian dollars, worth about $280,000 U.S., well below the cost of bringing a lawsuit in a typical severe dog attack case.
(See Two-year-old girl maimed for life by cop’s K9, but nobody pays for her care.)
Canadian victim gets 2% of U.S. award
Currently the highest disclosed settlement paid to a U.S. dog attack survivor is the $21.5 million that King County, Washington on August 28, 2025 agreed to pay to settle claims by pit bull victim Gyongyi Bazso Maas and her family.
(See $21.5 million settlement from negligent county to jogger mauled by pit bull.)
Many other U.S. dog attack settlements have run into eight figures.
(See Pit bull toll rises; $17 million settlement shows cost of city non-response.)
By contrast, the highest disclosed settlement in Canada appears to be the top-end limit award of $392,000 issued on June 20, 2026 by the British Columbia Supreme Court to licensed practical nurse Kaarina Schrott, 46, on June 20, 2026.
About half of the sum was to cover future lost earnings due to the severity of her injuries. The total is less than 2% of the award in the Gyongyi Bazso Maas case, less than 150 miles south, involving similar injuries and circumstances, but across the U.S./Canada border.
Both victims were attacked by off-leash dogs while jogging
“The dog’s owner has also been ordered to pay her $19,000 in court costs and to reimburse the province for $9,000 in covered medical costs,” reported Susan Lazaruk for the Vancouver Sun.
“Schrott’s claims went unchallenged,” Lazurek explained, “because the dog’s owner, Jocelyn Gaetan Roger, didn’t file a response to the lawsuit and didn’t show up in court, according to the judgment.
“Schrott was unable to serve Roger with documents, despite sending them to a property he owned in Gold Bridge and to a Surrey mailing address linked to that property, it said. Registered mail sent to Roger was returned as undeliverable.”
British Columbia Supreme Court justice Karrie Anne Wolfe ruled that, “The defendant’s failure to respond means he is deemed to have admitted liability.”
Schrott was mauled by Jocelyn Gaetan Roger’s off-leash dog, of unspecified breed, while jogging on a foot path in Vernon, British Columbia.
In December 2020, Schrott, then 41, was jogging on a foot path in Vernon when a large off-leash dog approached from a truck it was standing by and attacked her, “biting her elbow, shaking her and pulling her to the ground,” according to the judgment.
$61,000 for injured nurse, who may not get the money
The next highest court award in a Canadian dog attack case of which ANIMALS 24-7 has record was $61,000 in damages plus $4,000 in costs, also in a default judgement case, against a Halifax, Nova Scotia couple whose pit bull mauled a visiting nurse.
The attack occurred in May 2016 inside the couple’s home, where one of the defendants was the nurse’s patient.
“According to court documents, the nurse had called ahead to make sure the couple’s dog was locked up,” the CBC reported, but she was attacked on a stairway as she was leaving.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Nova Scotia Supreme Court justice Christa Brothers issued the award verdict in October 2024.
As the defendants pleaded inability to pay, it is unclear whether the injured nurse ever actually received any of the money.
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Yet more disgusting, unjustifiable, completely avoidable, and senseless suffering in societies apparently valuing generationally purpose-bred killing machines above all other living beings.
With gratitude for your ongoing refusal to ignore or excuse these crimes. I could never use my heritage or any suffering I have endured as an excuse for such egregious lack of conscience.
Thank you again for doing this emotionally difficult chore of recounting the macabre, gruesome details of yet more attacks and killings of vulnerable children and the elderly by exceedingly dangerous dogs owned (I won’t say they have ‘a guardian’..they don’t deserve that responsible term) by these totally irresponsible persons.
I can only echo the previous writer and bemoan what I consider the bizarre and irresponsible manner in which the Canadian government handles/treats such vile crimes.
I am in no way in a position to judge these abhorrent crimes, but the perpetrators do deserve to pay more than the judgement they received.
Perhaps they could do something more to compensate the aggrieved families of the persons killed than staying under home arrest, though what I do not know – perhaps a psychologist might have a suggestion.
Meanwhile, thank you again for casting the needed spotlight on this social abomination of dog attacks and killings which cry out for more attention.
I don’t know what is happening to Canada with regard to animal issues and how they are handled – they seem to be going backwards in most areas of animal concerns. Deeply disappointing.