The Tragic Death of Carter Spivak-Villeneuve:

A Calgary Community in Mourning

On the morning of August 1, 2025, the Abbeydale neighbourhood in northeast Calgary woke to devastating news: 16-year-old Carter Spivak-Villeneuve had been killed in a local park and sports field. What police have described as a targeted attack—rooted in an “ongoing dispute” among a small group of youths—ended a young life far too soon and left an entire city grappling with grief.

Carter was a typical teenager: he loved hockey, had a wide circle of friends, and was remembered by those who knew him as kind-hearted and full of potential. A makeshift memorial quickly grew at the scene—flowers, hockey sticks, jerseys, and handwritten notes from classmates and strangers alike. Hundreds attended a candlelight vigil in the days that followed, a quiet testament to how deeply his loss was felt.

Calgary Police moved swiftly. Within weeks, investigators identified suspects, all youths themselves:

Three 15-year-old boys were arrested and charged with first-degree murder (one on Muskowekwan First Nation in Saskatchewan with RCMP assistance, the others in Calgary).

On November 19, 2025, a fourth youth, a 16-year-old boy, was taken into custody and also charged with first-degree murder.

Police have stressed that this was not a random act and that they are not seeking any additional suspects. The four accused are currently in custody, and the case is proceeding under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which protects their identities.

Staff Sgt. Sean Gregson of the Calgary Police Homicide Unit spoke solemnly about the case: “The fact that a 16-year-old lost his life, and the individuals believed responsible are themselves youths, is deeply troubling. Disputes that may seem insignificant can escalate quickly and tragically.”

Notably, investigators have not linked this homicide to firearms. In a year when many Canadian cities (including Calgary) have actually seen a decline in gun-related violence among youth—gang shootings in Western Canada are down significantly from 2023–2024 peaks—this incident stands apart as a knife-involved tragedy born out of a personal conflict rather than organized crime or broader turf wars.

For the Spivak-Villeneuve family, the pain is immeasurable. Carter’s mother has spoken publicly about wanting her son to be remembered for the light he brought into the world, not the violent way he left it. Community members have rallied with fundraisers for the family and calls for more youth supports—counselling, mentorship, and safe spaces—so that other families might be spared similar heartbreak.

This is, at its core, a story of profound individual loss rather than a symptom of some wider wave. It’s a reminder of how fragile life can be, even in a city and a country where serious youth violence, particularly involving guns, has been trending downward. Abbeydale and Calgary are mourning one of their own, and the hope now is that justice, healing, and prevention efforts can honour Carter’s memory.

Written by Grok 4.1 by xAI / Produced and Presented by Mack McColl

More abbreviated justice in society via the abuse excuse

Jeremy Steinke

Accused of a ghastly murder? Evidence stacked against you? Is your defense council struggling to find any redeeming qualities that humanize you? Don’t panic, there is another get-out-of-jail card to play. No, you can't call the Human Rights Act because courts have yet to recognize the human right to commit homicide. But you can try another fashionable legal device: the plea that you were abused as a child and therefore cannot be held responsible for your actions as an adult.

We might call it the abuse excuse, or perhaps - given that parents are usually blamed for the abuse - the Mother of All Mitigating Circumstances. It is a confession, not of your own sins, but the sins of somebody else from your past. You are not really seeking forgiveness, since you do not accept that anything is your fault. Instead, you demand recognition that you, too, are a victim, a ‘survivor’ in need not of punishment but of support.

And it is not just high-profile, low-life murder cases. The abuse excuse has become a staple argument, almost a fashion statement, for any public figure in need of sympathy. Why did rock musician Pete Townshend access pay-per-view child pornography websites? Because: ‘I believe that I was sexually abused between the ages of five and six and a half ... I cannot remember clearly what happened.’ Why was President Bill Clinton such a philanderer? Because, explained his wife, he was ‘scarred’ by psychological abuse at the age of four.

No doubt many of these people are telling the truth. But why should it now be so readily accepted that childhood abuse can automatically explain what happens in later life? Whereas, once it might have been thought that people would leave these childish horrors behind as they grow and learn coping mechanisms to lead a good and moral life, now the belief seems to be that there can be no escape from traumas suffered as a toddler or teenager and the pains of childhood should be inflicted on others.

What makes the abuse excuse attractive to the accused is the displacement of responsibility. Since you cannot change what was done to you in the past, how can you reasonably be blamed for whatever your childhood drives you to now? What makes the excuse resonate more widely, however, is our diminished view of the human condition. As a society, we seem to have lost faith in the capacity of individuals to overcome adversity and try to shape their destinies. A culture in which it is assumed that we are victims of forces beyond our control, where we are all experiencing diminished responsibility for our lives, provides fertile ground for the abuse excuse. No matter what happens these degrading appeals seem set to continue.

It is a syndrome that more and more attorneys are using when they explain the aberrant behaviour of the accused, telling the court why the crime was committed and indeed why the accused is expecting to get away with it. The abuse excuse gets abused itself, as seen when Jeremy Steinke tried to explain why he committed the Richardson family murders in Medicine Hat, except he wasn't the one being abused. He said it was his then-12 year old girlfriend and accomplice being abused, that she became the youngest mass murderer in Canadian history because of the treatment she received in the household. Thankfully the court rejected Steinke's defense, and rightly so, basically rebutting the abuse excuse as described by legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, a "legal invitation to vigilantism."

The abuse excuse gives us the reason an accused cannot tell right from wrong - responsibility for actions go out the door. The abuse excuse was the reason parole was a free pass for Darnell Pratt who killed in the act of stealing $12 worth of gas to fuel a stolen vehicle, scurrilously ending the life of young gas station attendant Grant DePatie by dragging him for 7 km in the undercarriage of the stolen vehicle. He continues to claim that a childhood spent in the revolving door of foster care created the Pratt that society must deal with today, problems he doesn't necessarily see in himself. His defense appeared to be holding sway as he ran amok in the parole system to be set completely free in July 2012.

The abuse excuse gives us all reason to commit a crime once we clearly make our accusations against our abusers, but since we have all been abused in someway over the course of our lives, the abuse excuse may be doing a major job abbreviating justice in present day society.