B.C. man who fatally shot friend during bullet proof vest 'game' handed 4-year sentence

A george vancouver Island adult male who fatally crack his quaker triad years ago while the pair were playing with bullet proof vests has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Sooke, B.C., resident Adam Steenbergen, 33, pleaded guilty to manslaughter using a firearm and two weapons charges in the March 12, 2023, incident which took the life of 42-year-old father of two Michael Leier.

The pair had planned to take turns shooting each other while wearing bullet proof vests, a "game" they had played before using a different vest, according to a B.C. Supreme Court decision handed down May 8.

According to an agreed statement of facts, the two men met up the evening before the shooting and stayed up into the following afternoon drinking and doing cocaine.

They then packed two guns — a Polymer80, a restricted semi-automatic firearm, and a Cobray M10, a prohibited fully-automatic firearm — and drove to a remote logging road near Jordan River to go shooting.

The men left Steenbergen's truck when it got stuck in the snow and headed into the bush, where Leier put on one of the vests.

He then instructed Steenbergen to shoot him with the Polymer80, urging his friend, "Don't be an [expletive], [expletive] do it."

The bullet struck the vest, but lodged in Leier's sternum, causing "massive bleeding" when bits of bone pierced the sac around his heart and aorta, the ruling states.

When Steenbergen realized his friend wasn't "faking" the injury, he dragged him to the truck. He couldn't get phone service, and left Leier in the truck while he went to get help, the ruling states.

Steenbergen eventually flagged down a vehicle that transported the injured man into mobile phone range while he tried to perform CPR. Paramedics, who ultimately arrived close to three hours after the shooting, were unable to revive Leier.

When RCMP arrived, Steenbergen admitted he'd shot his friend. Police found a bag of cocaine on him and a number of empty vodka beverage cans at the scene of the shooting.

Steenbergen later told police that the pair had been "drinking and shooting in the bush all day and were pretty wasted," and that "if he could change spots with Mike, he would."

In a victim impact statement, Leier's wife described struggling with anxiety and depression, becoming the focus of unwanted attention in the community and an effort by a scammer to raise funds off the tragedy.

She told the court that she considered Steenbergen a friend and the "fact that he took her husband’s life is a special kind of torture for her," according to the ruling.

In handing down her sentence, Justice Jennifer Duncan weighed Steenbergen's lack of intent to kill and "heartfelt expressions of remorse," against the fact he was illegally in possession of the guns and was handling them while intoxicated.

"I agree that Mr. Steenbergen’s moral blameworthiness is low, but Mr. Leier’s death was the product of breathtaking recklessness," she ruled.

Duncan accepted a joint submission from the Crown and defence seeking the mandatory minimum sentence of four years, with sentences of six and nine months for the weapons charges to be served concurrently.

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