Guelph man pleads guilty to manslaughter

A Guelph man has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting he struck another man in the head repeatedly with a baseball bat.

Alan James Stemmler died in February 2022 after emergency responders were called to a townhouse complex on York Road.

Joseph Stafford was originally charged with second-degree murder in Stemmler’s death. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter in court last week.

A synopsis provided to the court for the guilty plea indicates that the two men knew each other and were part of a community of people who used drugs in Guelph.

The synopsis describes how, on the night of Feb. 21, 2022, Stafford, then 40-years-old, was at Stemmler’s unit with a number of people, most of whom were smoking methamphetamines and were under the influence of psychotropic drugs.

Witnesses described Stemmler shaking back and forth on the bed. Stafford hit him with a baseball bat. A witness described hearing eight to ten blows.

Stafford was the first person to call 911 to report the homicide, the synopsis goes on to describe. He told the police operator a guy named Jim was threatening his stepdaughter and that he smashed him over the head with a baseball bat.

When police investigated, they could not identify any person at the residence who would be considered Stafford’s stepdaughter.

Stemmler died in hospital not long after the attack.

The synopsis indicates two psychiatric reports were done which led the crown and defense to agree there is reasonable doubt as to whether Stafford had the ability, at the time of the incident, to form the specific intent to kill or the specific intent to cause bodily harm that he knew was likely to cause death, leading to the plea to the lesser offence of manslaughter.

Stafford is scheduled to return to court in February for sentencing submissions.