RED DEER COUNTY – A federal inmate serving an indeterminate sentence for second-degree murder at Bowden Institution died last week.
Correctional Service Canada said Michael Lee Hobbs was 50 when he died in custody Jan. 2 at the penitentiary located near Highway 2 in Red Deer County north of Calgary.
“As in all cases involving the death of an inmate, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) will review the circumstances. CSC policy requires that the police and the coroner be notified,” CSC said in a statement released Jan. 3.
“The inmate's next of kin have been notified.”
At the time of death, CSC said Hobbs had been serving an indeterminate sentence, which commenced on May 14, 1993.
His second-degree murder conviction in Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in Calgary, alongside co-accused Bobby Glen Holt’s, was affirmed by the Court of Appeal of Alberta just over a year after his sentence started, records show.
“It is admitted that one of the accused phoned the row house where the deceased lived and expressed displeasure with the conduct of a young person who was there then. The accused indicated that they were coming over in a hostile spirit. They arrived soon after, Hobbs equipped with a knife and Holt a screwdriver,” Court of Appeal of Alberta justices wrote in a memorandum of judgment dismissing the men’s appeals filed June 24, 1994.
“They barged into the house. A fight began with the deceased, who was the father of the family which lived there, and was the tenant of the premises. The deceased proved to be a fearless and effective fighter,” wrote the three justices tasked with ruling on the appeal.
After a struggle on the inside stairs leading up to the bedrooms, the victim forced the two accused to retreat outside, according to court documents.
“The deceased evidently thought that the two armed accused had not become harmless just because they ran out the door, and the events of the next two minutes tragically proved how right he was,” the justices wrote.
Outside the home, the justices wrote that according to evidence of all concerned, including the accused, it was clear that Hobbs stabbed the deceased a number of times, and that that killed the man.
Holt “wielded the screwdriver, and the stab wounds inflicted by it were not very deep and in medical terms did not cause death or contribute to it. The trial judge found him also guilty of second-degree murder under s. 21 of the (Criminal) Code as a party who aided Hobbs."
The men’s application to the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal was also dismissed in the fall of 1994.
