Michael MacPherson was in Yukon Supreme Court this morning for the beginning of his sentencing hearing for fatally stabbing Tanner Sinclair in a fight.

Originally charged with second-degree murder, MacPherson pleaded guilty to manslaughter earlier this month.

The plea to the lesser criminal charge of manslaughter angered Sinclair’s family, many whom have travelled to Whitehorse from Alberta to present victim impact statements.

Sinclair’s mother, Wendy Sinclair, read her victim impact to the court late this morning, continuously sobbing as she described the loving bond she and her 27-year-old son had.

The court convened this morning with Crown prosecutor Eric Marcoux reading the facts of the case into the record.

They indicate there was tension between MacPherson, 34, and Sinclair over a truck MacPherson had obtained from Sinclair.

The two were at a barbecue hosted by Kory Basaraba at his home in Copper Ridge on the night of July 14, 2014.

Basaraba, MacPherson and Sinclair had made their way down to The Ridge pub. A security video showed the three standing around the bar chatting, with no aggressive behaviour apparent.

A short time later, a video overseeing the parking lot seemed to show a bit of aggression between MacPherson and Sinclair.

All three eventually returned to Basaraba’s home on Lazulite Drive, where an encounter between MacPherson and Sinclair began in the backyard.

“By all accounts, everything seemed to be going well until Mr. MacPherson began making comments about the truck that Mr. Sinclair sold him,” reads the agreed statement of facts.

“Mr. Sinclair made a remark to the effect that he should just knock Mr. MacPherson out, to which Mr. MacPherson replied, ‘Just do it.’”

A fight ensued, and Sinclair was stabbed four times by a knife that had been left on a backyard table, after Sinclair had to remove all his tools from his truck because of vehicle problems.

The court heard of several deep stab wounds and how, after being transported to Whitehorse General Hospital, Sinclair died of his wounds several hours later.

The court also heard this morning how MacPherson’s criminal record includes two convictions for assault with a weapon, one in 2001, and one in 2007.

The conviction in 2007 occurred in a bar incident when MacPherson struck a man in the face with a beer glass, after the man became upset by comments MacPherson had made to his girlfriend. The victim received 96 stitches to his face and lost the vision in his right eye.

Before the court was to hear victim impact statements from six to eight people, some of which include Sinclair’s family, the Crown asked Justice Leigh Gower for a brief adjournment to organize the statements.

Following the emotional address to the court by Wendy Sinclair, the court heard from Whitney Sandulak, Sinclair’s widow and the mother of two young daughters, one born within two months of her dad’s death.

Referring to MacPherson only by his last name, she told of how the death of her husband has robbed her and her daughters of a loving husband and father.

She called MacPherson a coward, a coward who has shown no remorse, a coward who turned to the easy life of drugs rather pursuing a life of love and hard work, as her husband had.

“You, MacPherson, will never be the man he was, not even close,” Sandulak said. “You’re a weak coward that took the life of a innocent man. We all know the truth and we all know who Tanner was.

“And you knew, in order to take him down, you would had to catch him by surprise and use force with a weapon because you knew you would never take him man-to-man.”

Sandulak told of how she went to the hospital after going to their neighours’ to see about all the emergency vehicles. After she identified herself as Sinclair’s wife, she was told by the police she should hurry because there’d been a stabbing.

The widow told the court how, after conferring with the doctors, she authorized them to take her husband off life-support at 5:36 a.m.

At that moment, she told Justice Gower, she and her daughter and her unborn daugher were given a life sentence, a “life sentence without any chance of parole.”

Following Sinclair’s death on the morning of July 25, 2014, MacPherson turned himself in to police on Vancouver Island in the company of his lawyer.

He was released on $25,000 bail in May 2015 but was brought back into custody on Jan. 3 of this year for breach of his release conditions.

During a search, authorities turned up a bag of crushed drugs, a bag with fentanyl in it and a bottle with clean urine.

The sentencing hearing was expected to carry on into Wednesday.