The convicted killer of an Indo-Canadian teen from Surrey will be going to prison for 8 years. Lekendric Martez Smith stabbed Jaylen Sandhu to death in 2014.
SURREY – The convicted killer of an Indo-Canadian teen from Surrey will be going to prison for 8 years.
Lekendric Martez Smith stabbed Jaylen Sandhu to death in 2014.
Smith was originally charged as a youth offender with second-degree murder of Sandhu in Surrey.
However, he pleaded guilty to an adult charge of manslaughter and, while he received a sentence of eight years in prison, will serve just under seven years with time served.
Smith is not allowed to own firearms and must also provide a DNA sample to officials.
Sandhu, who was stabbed in the 16300-block of 88th Avenue on Dec. 18, 2014, was 17 when he was stabbed in December of 2014 in the 163-hundred block of 88th Avenue. He died in hospital later.
Sandhu and Smith are believed to have known each other.
“Even if he got 100 years, it’s not going to bring my son back,” Danny Sandhu, the victim’s father, told the Surrey-Leader-Now newspaper.
“We needed some closure to move on to the next chapter of our lives, so” he said, and expressed relief his family had not been exposed to a trial and “horrific pictures.”
“There’s some details and stuff I did not want my family to go through,” he said.
Sandhu had been set to graduate from Fleetwood Park Secondary School in the spring of 2015 and his family has launched a scholarship in his memory, the Jaylen Sandhu Dreams Foundation.
It provides an annual $1,000 scholarship to a student at Fleetwood Park. The next fundraiser for the scholarship will be held Aug. 27 in Guildford, with details to come closer to that date.
