SaskatoonA night where three friends were hanging out and drinking in Saskatoon turned tragic after two of them got into a fight and one of them died. The “heart of the issue” in Timothy Smith’s manslaughter trial is what caused his friend Landon Waddell’s death, the Crown prosecutor said in her opening statement Monday in Saskatoon provincial court. Timothy Smith charged in 2024 death of Landon WaddellHannah Spray · CBC News · Posted: Nov 17, 2025 2:22 PM EST | Last Updated: November 17Listen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Landon Waddell was 37 years old when he died in his home in Saskatoon on Nov. 17, 2024. Timothy Smith is charged with manslaughter in his death. (Dignitymemorial.com)A night where three friends were hanging out and drinking in Saskatoon turned tragic after two of them got into a fight and one of them died. The “heart of the issue” in Timothy Smith’s manslaughter trial is what caused his friend Landon Waddell’s death, the Crown prosecutor said in her opening statement Monday in Saskatoon provincial court.Defence lawyer Brady Knight also gave a short opening statement, indicating he would be presenting a self-defence argument or, depending on the evidence at trial, a defence of the death being an accident.Waddell, 37, died in his home on the 400 block of 26th Street West exactly one year before the start of the trial, on Nov. 17, 2024. Smith, 46, was arrested at the scene.The first witness on Monday was the third man who was in the home that night, their friend Coady Boyer-Lafond.Boyer-Lafond, 44, said everything seemed normal as the three friends sat around drinking in Waddell’s living room. But late in the night, as Boyer-Lafond was thinking about going to bed, he heard the other two start arguing.He said he heard Smith say to Waddell, “Let go,” and looked up to see Waddell holding Smith’s shirt. Then he saw Smith punch Waddell two times in the head.Boyer-Lafond said he saw Waddell fall over backwards and on the way down, Smith “gave him a sort of kick, or stomp.”He said he thought Waddell might have hit his head on a table as he fell, and when Boyer-Lafond called to Waddell, there was no response.Boyer-Lafond said he immediately called 911 and had to go outside and run to the corner to see the street sign so he could tell the operator the correct address. When he came back in, he said Smith was performing CPR on Waddell, and Boyer-Lafond said the 911 operator then helped talk Smith through giving first aid.Landon Waddell died after an altercation in his home on 26th Street West on Nov. 17, 2024. (Dan Zakreski/CBC)When the first police officers arrived, Boyer-Lafond overheard Smith “say something about a home invasion,” but Boyer-Lafond shook his head, which another officer saw, and Boyer-Lafond said he told that officer it was just the three of them in the home.During cross-examination, Smith’s lawyer Knight questioned Boyer-Lafond about differences between his testimony and statements he gave to police on the night of the incident and a couple of days later. Boyer-Lafond acknowledged that a transcript from one of his interviews showed he had said Waddell was punching Smith at the beginning, but Boyer-Lafond said he didn’t recall saying that, and that he only remembered Smith punching Waddell.Boyer-Lafond agreed with Knight that he wasn’t paying attention to the argument between his friends until he heard Smith telling Waddell to let go of his shirt.Prior to the start of the trial proper, Judge Inez Cardinal heard testimony from the first three police officers at the scene in a voir dire — or trial within a trial — to determine whether the statements Smith made to them when they arrived were admissible for the purpose of cross-examination of Smith. Cardinal ruled Smith was not considered a suspect when he made the statements, which she ruled were voluntary and admissible.
Drunken fight between friends ended in death, Saskatoon manslaughter trial hears
