Bird sentenced to seven years in death of Simon Grant

Oct 12, 2017 | 4:45 PM

One of the three individuals charged with murder in the death of La Ronge restauranteur Simon Grant has been sentenced.

Austin Bird, 18, was initially charged with second-degree murder, but pleaded guilty last month to the lesser offence of manslaughter. Today Bird was handed a seven-year sentence by a La Ronge judge, Crown Prosecutor Greg Lyndon confirmed.

The charge stems from an April armed robbery at Louisiana’s Bar-B-Que that ended with the death of the 64-year-old owner Simon Grant. Bird was charged later the same month along with two youths, aged 17 and 14. Matthew Nagy-Charles, 18, was later charged as an accessory after the fact.

Lyndon said many details of the case are still protected by publication ban, and he could not provide details of the case beyond the duration of the sentence. The two youths also facing murder charges in connection with Grant’s death are still before the courts, Lyndon said, and have appearances scheduled for November and January.