ManitobaA Swan River man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the January 2024 stabbing death of an acquaintance he randomly encountered on Main Street has been sentenced to seven years in prison. Dean Bell pleaded guilty to manslaughter in relation to the killing of Calvin Chartrand on Jan. 13, 2024CBC News · Posted: Oct 12, 2025 2:36 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours agoDean Bell was sentenced to seven years in prison for manslaughter in Swan River Provincial Court on Oct. 2, 2025. (Google Street View)A Swan River man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the January 2024 stabbing death of an acquaintance he randomly encountered on Main Street has been sentenced to seven years in prison. On Jan. 13, 2024, Dean Bell, who is now 31 years old, fatally stabbed Calvin Chartrand, 33, when they ran into each other on Main Street in Swan River, an act Manitoba Provincial Court Associate Chief Judge Geoffrey H. Bayly said was “akin to an act of revenge” in a sentencing decision delivered on Oct. 2. A few days before the killing, Bell and Chartrand — who knew each other — were at a mutual friend’s home when they got into a confrontation, according to the court document. Bell had been asked to leave, but refused. Bell later told police that Chartrand had threatened him and took his cellphone during the altercation. Bell was walking down Main Street with his older half-brother Tyrone Guiboche — who was also charged with manslaughter — when they saw Chartrand across the street and began to confront him about the cellphone, the decision said. A physical fight broke out in the middle of the road between the brothers and Chartrand. Bell took out a knife, stabbing Chartrand once in the face. The attack continued, ending after Bell stabbed Chartrand a second time in the buttocks, the judge wrote. The decision said the brothers stopped the attack to help Swan River Health Centre, but Chartrand died of internal bleeding from the second stab wound, which had severed the internal iliac artery.Bell confessed to the stabbing when speaking to police, the document said, but claimed he acted in self-defence due to the alleged threats and stolen phone. Judge considers mitigating factorsBayly called the attack “unprovoked,” and “motivated by opportunity,” in his decision. Bayly wrote that Bell had “mid-to-high” level or moral culpability in the crime, citing Bell’s role as instigator and aggressor, his choice to escalate by using a knife, the fact that it was a two-on-one assault, and the “gratuitous and brutal” nature of the attack. The judge also balanced several mitigating factors, including the fact that Bell pleaded guilty to manslaughter, helped Chartrand get medical assistance and had a minimal and unrelated criminal record, according to the decision. Bayly decided on an eight-year sentence, reducing that to seven years in prison based on several Gladue factors — contextual information about an Indigenous person’s history and the impact of colonization included in a pre-sentencing report — that lessened his moral culpability. Bell is an Indigenous man whose mother is from Duck Bay, Man., but he was largely raised by his father in the northwestern community of Birch River. He now has a strained relationship with his father due to Bell’s “lifestyle choices and issues with substance abuse,” the decision said. Bell told the pre-sentencing report writer that his mother struggled with an alcohol addiction. He began using alcohol and marijuana in his teenage years, later developing issues with methamphetamine and cocaine use in his mid-20s. He had experienced multiple assaults, telling the report writer that he started to carry a knife for “protection,” according to the decision. In addition to the seven-year prison term, Bayly ordered that Bell receive a lifetime weapons ban. “This seven-year term reflects the serious nature of the offence, underscores the need to denounce violent conduct within the community, and emphasizes the importance of both specific and general deterrence, while also considering the offender’s personal history,” Bayly wrote. Just days after Bell’s sentencing, police arrested 41-year-old Guiboche at a home in Swan River on Oct. 6, Swan River RCMP said in a news release. He had an outstanding warrant for the manslaughter charge, as well as a charge for failing to attend court.
Swan River man sentenced to 7 years in prison for Main Street stabbing death
