Nova ScotiaA jury trial for Tyrell Peter Dechamp was supposed to begin Tuesday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court, but he instead pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the April 19, 2016, death of Naricho Clayton.Tyrell Peter Dechamp, 35, admits to shooting Naricho Clayton to death on April 19, 2016Blair Rhodes · CBC News · Posted: Sep 10, 2025 4:55 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoTyrell Dechamp is escorted by a sheriff’s deputy following an appearance in Halifax provincial court in December 2017. (CBC)A 35-year-old Halifax man has pleaded guilty to murder for gunning down a man who was sitting in a vehicle parked along a city street, a killing he committed just two days after shooting another man to death in a home in the West End.A jury trial for Tyrell Peter Dechamp was supposed to begin Tuesday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court, but he instead pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the April 19, 2016, death of Naricho Clayton, 23. Dechamp admitted to firing multiple rounds into a vehicle on Gottingen Street, which was parked across from a halfway house where he was living, according to a brief agreed statement of facts submitted to the court.The facts do not detail a motive, but indicate Clayton, who was in the vehicle and died at the scene from gunshot wounds, had a loaded handgun in his waistband.Dechamp also pleaded guilty Wednesday to attempted murder for the shooting of Ricardo Whynder, who was with Clayton in the vehicle but survived.Dechamp will be sentenced on Oct. 15. Second-degree murder carries with it an automatic life sentence, with a judge setting parole eligibility, which can range from 10 to 25 years.Naricho Clayton, 23, died April 19, 2016. (Facebook)With the guilty pleas, information that has been kept under a publication ban for five years — and may have prejudiced Dechamp’s right to a fair trial — can now be reported.That includes the fact that Dechamp is already serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2020 of first-degree murder in the killing of Tyler Richards on April 17, 2016, two days after Clayton was murdered. The sweeping ban was imposed when the two trials were expected to happen within a few weeks of one another. It meant the media could not report that the trial into Richards’s death was underway, let alone the outcome, even though the trial into Clayton’s killing was pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Tyler Richards killingRichards, 29, was known locally as a basketball star who had played with the Halifax Rainmen of the National Basketball League of Canada. He was cut by the team in 2013 and at the time of his death, he had been dealing drugs.His mother, Heather Richards, sobbed while testifying at Dechamp’s trial that her son had been charged in the past with trafficking cocaine. “I told him there were two paths for the lifestyle he was on,” she said. “One was death, the other jail. I told him to pick one.”Tyler Richards, age 29, was shot to death in 2016. (Atlantic Funeral Homes)On the day he was killed, Tyler Richards met Dechamp at a house on Cook Avenue in Halifax. The pair had been exchanging messages ahead of time for a drug deal. Richards wasn’t in the house very long before he was tied up and shot multiple times by two different guns.’Callous disregard for human life’While the jury’s verdict convicting Dechamp came before the pandemic shutdown, the formal sentencing hearing did not happen until September 2020. A conviction of first-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no parole eligibility for 25 years.In her submission, Crown prosecutor Kim McOnie did not mince words, calling Richards’s murder “a brutal, execution-style homicide.””Mr. Dechamp has consistently shown a callous disregard for human life,” McOnie said at the sentencing hearing.A victim impact statement from Richards’s partner, Lekiesha Smith, was read into the record.”I am still haunted by the cries and screams of our daughter when she was informed that she would never be able to hug her father again because a coward had ended his life,” she said.”My protector, my best friend, my rock, my other half is no longer here because his life was stolen from him, from us,” she added.’Evil side of this drug trade’The final word in the sentencing went to Justice Jamie Campbell of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.”During this trial we saw another evil, evil side of this drug trade,” Campbell said.”A young man, again, in the prime of his life is dead because of this. A family is mourning, his friends are mourning, his community is mourning, and another young man goes to jail and there’s no closure in it.” Campbell said tragedies connected to the drug trade keep “happening over and over again.””All I can say to the family and friends here is I’m deeply sorry,” he added. “I did not see everything you went through, but I do know that sitting here through this trial you went through hell and back.”Dechamp appealed his conviction. Nova Scotia’s Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal in 2024.ABOUT THE AUTHORBlair Rhodes has been a journalist for more than 40 years, the last 31 with CBC. His primary focus is on stories of crime and public safety. He can be reached at blair.rhodes@cbc.caWith files from Richard Cuthbertson
Halifax man pleads guilty to murder committed 2 days after he killed another man
