Warning: This article contains graphic and disturbing details. Discretion is advised. A federal inmate serving a life sentence for the 2008 murder of his former girlfriend, which he said he never committed, has now been sentenced for killing a man in a Gravenhurst prison. Devon Saunders, 58, was sentenced to nine years in prison for the December 2022 killing of another inmate nearly four years ago. The sentence handed down by regional senior judge Justice Howard Leibovich, in a Newmarket courtroom, came months after the Bracebridge jury acquitted Saunders of murder but found him guilty of manslaughter following a full day of deliberations in June. The defence had argued Saunders acted in self-defense; the Crown said Saunders plotted to murder his former cellmate. Saunders admitted to killing 30-year-old Leslie Ma on Dec. 18, 2022, when he stabbed Ma in the kitchen of the medium-security federal prison in Muskoka. Saunders testified he feared for his life after being jumped in the shower eight months earlier. He said he believed Ma and a group of men attacked him. Saunders testified Ma had hit him over the head with a chair in the attack. Justice Leibovich, in his sentencing decision, found “there was no air of reality” to the defence’s claims that Saunders was provoked prior to killing Ma. The defence argued Ma threatened to kill Saunders after he struck Ma in the head with the rock. Justice Leibovich disagreed with Saunders’ argument that he was provoked in the moments prior to stabbing Ma. “While I accept some of Mr. Saunders’ evidence, I find that generally he was inconsistent on many issues, specifically what he saw and knew about Mr. Ma’s involvement in the bathroom incident,” said Justice Leibovich, who concluded Saunders’ testimony that he felt threatened by Ma was “illogical.” Saunders testified in trial that his issues with Ma in the Gravenhurst prison stemmed from a friendship Saunders had with an inmate in Manitoba, where both he and Ma had done time prior to arriving at Beaver Creek. Saunders was serving a life sentence with no parole eligibility until 2037 for the murder of his former girlfriend Shernell Pierre 18 years ago in Edmonton. Pierre had been shot in the head inside her car that was found burned near the West Edmonton Mall. Saunders was arrested four years later and convicted in 2015 of Pierre’s murder. He has long maintained his innocence. Saunders said he killed Ma in self-defence, after being threatened, Ma and his friends were going to kill him over a “beef” Saunders had with his former cellmate, Ma. The Crown alleged Saunders planned to kill Ma for months and caught him by surprise with the rock to the head and four stab wounds to his chest and side. Ma was two years into a 12-year sentence for drug trafficking in Alberta that included cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl. The Crown had sought an 18-year sentence; the defence asked for six years, less time served in pre-sentence custody under harsh conditions at Central North Correctional Centre while awaiting trial. The nine-year sentence will run concurrently to the life sentence Saunders has been serving since his arrest in 2012.
