Amy Lewis’ killer eligible for release

By None on December 11, 2017.

Medicine Hat News

The man who killed 23-year-old Medicine Hat College nursing student Amy Lewis was up for release this past weekend.

Reported first by Global News Calgary, Jerrison Herve Stopanski, 39, was eligible for statutory release on Saturday.

Upon release, Stopanski will have to abide by multiple conditions. They include reporting any intimate relationships he has with women to his parole officer, avoiding sex trade workers and avoiding contact with anyone in Lewis’ family.

If he fails to follow these conditions, he will end up back in custody.

Stopanski admitted to killing Lewis sometime during the early morning hours of June 12, 2012, in the hours after the two met.

Lewis’ body has never been recovered. Stopanski has never revealed how Lewis died, nor where her body could be found.

Stopanski pled guilty to manslaughter in 2014, and was sentenced to seven years, reduced to 4.5 years due to time spent in pretrial custody.

In coming to his sentencing decision, Justice Rodney Jerke told the court, “there is more to this story than we know now,” but outlined the precedent for manslaughter sentencing.

Namely, the Dr. Abraham Cooper case, in which the man was convicted by a jury of killing an associate, Dr. Doug Snider, in Fairview, Alta. in 1999, despite the lack of a body.

Stopanski’s sentence ends in August 2019.

With files from Global News Calgary.

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