Toilet-lid killer's appeal denied

The judge who convicted a Calgary man of fatally smashing a toilet tank lid on a man's head in a gang-related slaying made no errors in his ruling, Alberta's top court ruled on Friday. In a unanimous decision, a three-member Alberta Court of Appeal panel upheld Tyler Lee Nolet's conviction for second-degree murder. The appeal judges said Justice Bryan Mahoney applied the correct legal test when he ruled Nolet had the intent to murder Kenny Wong.

Nolet smashed Wong's head with a toilet tank lid on Aug. 21, 2008, inside the former Cowboy's nightclub. Nolet had called an associate with the gang to which he was linked while holed up in the washroom bar near closing time, but the man could offer him no help. Instead, Nolet grabbed a toilet tank lid, walked up to Wong who was standing at one of the bars, and struck him twice with the heavy porcelain slab.



The appeal judges said Mahoney was correct in finding Nolet had the required intent to commit murder - either he wished Wong dead, or intended to cause him sufficient harm and was reckless whether he died. "The weapon ... was brought down on Wong's head with as much force as the appellant could bring to bear," they noted in a written decision. "As the bartender described it 'probably as hard as you would swing a baseball bat, swing a golf club, take a slap shot in hockey,'" they said.

"As the appellant himself testified, he assaulted Wong with the intent to, at a minimum, render him unconscious," the judges said. "As the appellant expressed it 'I didn't want him to get up.'" Mahoney, who rejected Nolet's claims of self-defence, sentenced him to life in prison without parole for a minimum 12 years.