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Nearly two-dozen victim impact statements were presented Wednesday from those left to grieve the loss of SAIT basketball star John Smith Jr. in a senseless shooting.
And among the voices Justice Willie deWit heard from was the victim himself, when Smith’s fiancée included a love letter from him in her victim impact statement.
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Michaela Allen-Gullion also described the unbearable heartbreak she suffered when Smith died in her arms in the early morning hours of Oct. 10, 2021, after he came to her rescue outside a downtown nightclub.
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“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the love of my life,” Allen-Gullion told a courtroom packed with family and friends of the basketball star who came to Calgary from Washington State to pursue a career in his sport.
“I couldn’t begin to describe the amount of light he brought into my life.”
Smith, 31, had been talking to a bouncer outside the Junction Night Club on 8 Avenue S.W. when Jesse Michael Martinez approached Allen-Gullion and her friend, Humera Mizra, as they walked from the bar.
Martinez, believing she was a woman he’d earlier invited to an after-party, put his arm around her and she told him not to touch her as Mizra said he needed to back off.
Martinez initially did, before grabbing Allen-Gullion’s arm. When Smith saw him grab his fiancée, he approached, told him not to touch her and punched him in the face.
When Martinez fell to the ground a handgun fell out of his pocket and when he stood up the two men started to grapple.
During the ensuing altercation, Martinez fired two shots, one that went through Smith’s thigh and a second which pierced his heart.
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“I lost more than just John that night when I held him in my arms as I watched him take one last breath,” Allen-Gullion told court.
“I lost myself in that process too.”
She concluded by reading a love letter Smith gave her a few months before his death.
“You are the only person I want to spend my good and bad days with,” he wrote.
“I love you Michaela now until the end of my days. Your man now until infinity.”
Smith’s sisters, mom also addressed court hearing
Among others to address the Calgary Court of King’s Bench hearing were Smith’s sisters, Sade and Krystal, and his mom, Cylon Bates.
“Over the last two years I’ve cried silently to myself in bed as to not wake up my sleeping two-year-old,” Krystal Smith said.
“My biggest concern is life moving forward without John. My life has been forever altered.”
Added Sade Smith: “There are not enough words in the English language to fully articulate what John meant, what he still means to us, or to describe the impact of his death.
“We will simply never be whole again.”
In sentencing submissions, Crown prosecutor Margot Engley suggested a fit punishment for Martinez, who had a lengthy criminal past and was subjected to two lifetime firearms prohibitions, would be a prison term of 14 to 16 years.
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