A judge has cited a B.C. man’s Indigenous heritage when sentencing him for the violent murders of his wife and teenage son. Orlan Marcel Dennis has been sentenced to life in prison and will be eligible for parole in 10 years, according to a recent decision from the B.C. Supreme Court.
The Dennis home was the scene of multiple murders in early April 2024. After accusing his wife Darlene of cheating on him, Dennis shot her in the face. Then, when his 18-year-old son, Dorian, responded after hearing the gunshot, Dennis shot him too. Police found the bodies, while an RCMP negotiator tried to convince Dennis to lay down his rifle and leave his mother’s home, where he went after the killings. But he came out, gun in hand, and police shot him twice before arresting him. This tragedy followed several years of addiction and violent assaults against Dennis’s wife and daughters.
But Justice Simon Coval noted in his sentencing decision that both Dennis’s parents were residential school survivors and he “grew up poor in a remote environment of violence and drug and alcohol abuse.” Dennis, was a member of the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation, an Indigenous reserve of around 235 members.
According to an “Indigenous sentencing report” used by Coval in considering the sentence, Dennis also said he had been sexually abused by a community member when he was young, went into foster care at seven and left school early. Also, a brother died a violent death and his sister and cousin died from drug overdoses.
The court relied on “the connection between Mr. Dennis’s crimes and the Indigenous sentencing factors present in his upbringing.” It also sought to spare Dennis’s family from suffering through a trial, noting, based on a joint submission by the Crown and defence counsel that one of his sons “need not testify about the horrific events which he witnessed” in the home.
He admitted to the fatal shooting of his wife and son and pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in the BCSC in April 2025 .
Such a plea carries a minimum of 10 years before eligibility to apply for parole, though Justice Coval and the Crown Attorney acknowledged at Dennis’s sentencing that it “is materially below the normal range for cases with such extreme circumstances as this.”
Dennis had even tried to withdraw that plea and argue the defence of intoxication, an attempt to disprove the intent required for a murder conviction. But he lost that attempt before the B.C. Supreme Court in March.
And so the plea stood, as well as the 10-year minimum, despite the fact that Dennis, as Justice Coval wrote in his decision, “inflicted the worst form of violence on an Indigenous woman and young man and tore apart an Indigenous family.”
He noted that “Mr. Dennis’s wife and son should have been safe in their home and protected by Mr. Dennis as a husband and father. Instead, he put them to a violent death. The devastation from his actions goes far beyond that. He deprived his children of a mother and a brother. He deprived Dorian’s partner of a husband and their son of a father. The surviving members of his family continue to suffer terribly from these horrific acts, as they described in their statements.
Coval also noted a “further exacerbating factor is Mr. Dennis’s prior record of violence toward his family members.”
The facts of the case are as follows.
On April 9, 2024, several family members were at the Dennis home having dinner, when Orlan and his brother, Tony, got into an argument. Orlan left, returning later. He and Darlene then started arguing and he accused her cheating on him. He got a .22 calibre rifle from a gun safe in their bedroom, returned to the living room where he shot Darlene in the face, just below her left eye.
Their son, Dorian, was downstairs at the time and ran upstairs when he heard the gunshot. Orlan shot him as he came up the stairs. Another son, Marshall, was downstairs in his room and overheard all this. He came out to see Dorian covered in blood at the bottom of the stairs. He helped Dorian to the stairs leading to the basement back door, but the door wouldn’t open, so he left Dorian on the stairs, escaped through his bedroom window and ran to his grandmother’s across the street, where the police were called.
Orlan left his home and went to his mother’s with the gun. The police arrived to find him on the steps. They told him he was under arrest and to drop the gun, but Orlan refused.
“He was waving the rifle frantically, trying to get inside (his mother’s home). He was swearing and clearly intoxicated, slurring his words and staggering,” according to the facts, as described in the sentencing decision. Orlan then entered his mother’s home and while a police officer watched it, other officer went to the Dennis home where Darlene and Dorian’s bodies were found.
Orlan engaged in a standoff with police for several hours, refusing to leave. Eventually, an RCMP crisis negotiator called the house and Orlan answered. “He told the crisis negotiator that he had killed his wife and son. He said they were planning to kill him, and that his wife was cheating on him. He said he did not mean to do that to his son, but Dorian came up on him too fast and by the time he realized it was him, it was too late,” states the sentencing decision.
Police then launched tear gas into the home, which led to Orlan leaving, but he was carrying the rifle, later found to contain multiple rounds of ammunition. Police shot him in the hip and arm before arresting him.
Five family members provided victim impact statements that were read out in court. The statements set out damage to their physical and mental health, personal relationships, ability to work, and hopes for the future, wrote Justice Coval.
He also noted that Dennis had a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for multiple assaults against his wife and daughters.
However, the Indigenous sentencing report mentioned difficulties with depression and anxiety and possible fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, noted Coval. There were family deaths and the closure of a support group during COVID-19. “As a result of all,” he wrote, “(Dennis) stopped working and turned to drugs.”
Coval sentenced Dennis to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 10 years. Dennis was also ordered to provide a DNA sample and prohibited from possessing several types of weapons for the rest of his life.
Finally, he was ordered not to have contact of any kind with close family members.
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