The man charged with shooting and killing Keith Baldwin in the head two years ago in downtown Chilliwack was ordered to stand trial in BC Supreme Court this week.
After a six-day preliminary inquiry that ended Aug. 25, Owen Dale Charpentier’s case was put over to October to fix a date for trial on one count of second-degree murder.
A local prolific offender, Charpentier was charged in April 2020 with the killing of Baldwin on Oct. 22, 2019 in the area of Yale Road and Fletcher Street.
When the 27-year-old Baldwin was found by a security guard that night, he was alone. He wasn’t yet dead but he then kept alive on life support for a short period of time so that friends and family could say goodbye.
READ MORE: Chilliwack man facing murder charge sentenced Thursday to unrelated robbery
READ MORE: Chilliwack prolific offender charged with murder of Keith Baldwin
After the killing, the RCMP used a shorthand often used to allay public fears to describe Baldwin: “known to police.”
But friends and family were upset by the label as an oversimplification that lumps in gang members with anyone with a criminal record. Baldwin’s wife talked to The Progress after his killing, describing Baldwin’s tumultuous teen life and troubled years, as well as his kindness and his hard work to change.
READ MORE: Wife of Chilliwack homicide victim says he was more than ‘known to police’
As for Charpentier, he was already behind bars facing the murder charge when he was sentenced in Chilliwack provincial court on March 4, 2021 to time served for the robbery of a man in the downtown area in 2019.
Charpentier’s lawyer Mark Swartz and Crown counsel Catherine Bright issued a joint submission of 18 months jail followed by two years probation for the robbery incident that occurred just six days before the homicide of Keith Baldwin on Oct. 22, 2019 just a few blocks away.
On Oct. 16 that year, Charpentier approached Kyle Wall who was on a scooter. Charpentier pulled out a can of bear spray and demanded Wall get off the scooter. A man with him had a machete, and the two of them along with a young woman brought Wall to a nearby abandoned house where he was held against his will.
Charpentier demanded Wall’s watch, a necklace, cash, an iPod and the scooter. One day later, he was arrested and charged with robbery, unlawful confinement, and kidnapping.
During the sentencing, there was no mention of the murder charge against Charpentier. Crown counsel Catherine Bright only told the court that he faced another “serious matter.”
Charpentier, his lawyer Mark Swartz, and Judge Browning appeared via video link into courtroom 204 in Chilliwack.
Charpentier wore standard issue orange sweats from Surrey Pretrial and he looked clean shaven with a short haircut.
Swartz read a little bit of Charpentier’s personal history into the record, a standard submission in criminal sentencing hearings. Charpentier was living in Alberta in the oil industry, lost that job and came back to Chilliwack. He had been working at a local company but began doing drugs, including cannabis, cocaine, meth, and his criminal life and homelessness began in 2017.
Charpentier is next due in BC Supreme Court in Chilliwack to fix a date for the second-degree murder charge on Oct. 4.
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