Warning: This article contains details that may be disturbing to some readers. Discretion Advised.
The ex-partner of the woman from We’koqma’q, Cassidy Bernard, and father of her two daughters, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The sentence includes 15 years for involuntary manslaughter in Bernard’s 2018 death and three years for child abandonment.
Dwight Austin Isadore heard sentencing in Port Hawkesbury High Court on Wednesday morning.
He was initially charged with second-degree murder, but the Crown accepted a guilty plea in June on the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of child abandonment.
Isadore had already served three years and 279 days.
Read more:
Cassidy Bernard’s ex-partner pleads guilty to 2018 involuntary manslaughter
Bernard was 22 years old when his mother and social worker discovered his body on October 24, 2018.
According to an agreed statement of facts, she was confined to her bed at her home in Waycobah in Cape Breton, and her seven-month-old twin daughters were found in their cots in the same bedroom, “malnourished, … confused.”
Bernard had nearly 20 supporters in the courtroom Wednesday, including his family. Some read his victim impact statements to the court.
Bernard’s mother, Mona, said finding her daughter’s body, along with her young daughters, was something no mother should have to experience.
“Cassidy’s murder just changed me,” Mona Bernard told the court. “I’m not the same person.”
Read more:
‘Our women are sacred’: Red dresses hung in Halifax to call for justice and honor MMIWG2S
Now, the Cassidy daughters are getting ready to start school in the fall, and Mona has no idea how to explain what happened to her mom.
“I have lost a part of me forever,” he said.
The victim’s aunt, Chief Annie Bernard-Daisley, spoke in court on behalf of the We’koqma’q community.
“I loved that boy so much,” they said.
Learning that Cassidy was dead and that her twins were malnourished, dehydrated and in dirty diapers was “something that haunted me forever,” Bernard-Daisley said.
“We’koma’q was robbed of a mother, a daughter, a sister, and We’koma’q was robbed of his sense of tranquility.”
The chief concluded her statement by addressing Isadore directly, saying that she will never set foot in his community again.
Read more:
Activists And Influencers Sound The Alarm After MMIWG Content Disappears From Instagram On Red Dress Day
On the day Bernard was found dead, October 24, 2018, Isadore gave a statement to RCMP saying he last saw Bernard on October 18 and had heard from her via text message on October 21. He told police the two were “not that close.” ” and had separated after the twins were born.
He was not arrested until more than a year later, after the RCMP organized an undercover investigation.
During a meeting with an undercover police officer on November 30, 2019, six months after the operation, Isadore said he went to Bernard’s home on the morning of October 21, 2018, and argued with her.
According to the officer’s account, Isadore detailed that he hit Bernard several times, and when he noticed that her head had fallen, he tried to wake her up, but she never did. He then laid her down on her bed, “he told her he loved her” and tried to erase her fingerprints from the scene. More details about the homicide are available here.
Read more:
Jury in Chantel Moore’s coroner’s inquest rules her death a homicide
Bernard’s death has been closely linked to the Red Dress movement, which calls for justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
Isadore’s family reached out to Global News after Isadore’s plea in June and offered a statement.
“There are no words or actions that can explain or take away the pain and loss Austin caused Cassidy, her family and loved ones. We hope that Austin’s plea brings some justice for Cassidy, the twins and her family,” said her grandmother, Patricia MacKay.
— With files from Rebecca Lau.
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.