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No jail time for MacMillan

Three-year suspended sentence for assault which led to McIntosh’s death Although the courts have given out two different punishments for the two men involved in the beating death of a Squamish lawyer, his widow Katy Hutchinson cannot separate th

Three-year suspended sentence for assault which led to McIntosh’s death

Although the courts have given out two different punishments for the two men involved in the beating death of a Squamish lawyer, his widow Katy Hutchinson cannot separate their actions.

Ryan MacMillan was given a three-year suspended sentence on Friday, Dec. 20 after pleading guilty to punching lawyer Bob McIntosh in the head. He will serve no jail time with that sentence.

The other young man involved in the murder, Ryan Aldridge, was sentenced to five years in jail after pleading guilty to assaulting McIntosh with four "soccer-style" kicks to the head that eventually severed an artery and killed him.

Hutchinson, who was left a widow with two young children that New Year’s Eve night five years ago, has always maintained that both men were responsible for her husband’s death.

"I can only look at this from the point of losing Bob, and I don’t separate the actions of MacMillan and Aldridge," she told the Vancouver Sun.

"This is a murder, which ever way you look at it. It was a murder that two people participated in."

It will be five years ago this New Year’s Eve that McIntosh made his way to a nearby Squamish house to check on a party thrown by the teenage son of a friend. He had promised to look in on the house while his friend was on vacation.

There were more than 100 people in the house, some drinking and doing drugs.

In an upstairs bedroom McIntosh was knocked to the ground by MacMillan and then kicked to death by Aldridge.

MacMillan went downstairs after punching McIntosh and did not see Aldridge kick McIntosh in the head.

MacMillan told several people at the party that he punched the 40-year-old lawyer and he gave police a statement the next day.

"It weighs heavily on me that Ryan MacMillan was the last person on this earth who spoke to my husband, whatever words were spoken between them," said Hutchinson.

Despite the fact that there were witnesses to the murder, a code of silence fell over the community and no one came forward with the crucial evidence to convict anyone in the murder.

The truth only came out after an undercover police investigation earlier this year.

Hutchinson said she was pleased with the five-year sentence that Aldridge received earlier this month and she wished that the assault charge against MacMillan were more serious. Instead he has been convicted of assault but will not have a criminal record if he obeys his probation order for the next three years.

"You do have a small but significant part in the chain of events," said Judge Judith Gedye at the sentencing as reported in The Sun.

"You’re always going to be the other person involved in the death of Mr. McIntosh."