{"id":445110,"date":"2026-01-31T12:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T12:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/445110\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T12:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T12:17:10","slug":"saskatoon-judge-acquits-andrew-rosenfeldt-of-killing-nykera-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/445110\/","title":{"rendered":"Saskatoon judge acquits Andrew Rosenfeldt of killing Nykera Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nykera Brown\u2019s mother screamed loudly as she stormed out of a Saskatoon King’s Bench courtroom, the anguish in her voice evident after a judge declared her 20-year-old daughter’s boyfriend not guilty of killing her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The crowded courtroom shattered on Friday when Justice Heather MacMillan-Brown said the Crown had been “unable to surmount” the high burden of proof necessary for a second-degree murder conviction, leaving her no choice but to acquit Andrew Rosenfeldt. <\/p>\n

The decision brought a dramatic close to a three-week, judge-alone trial that focused on whether Rosenfeldt was the person who fatally shot Brown.<\/p>\n

Brown died on Nov. 15, 2022 from a single gunshot wound to the head. Her body was found inside the couple\u2019s Avenue P South apartment.<\/p>\n

Rosenfeldt and Brown were both members of the Terror Squad street gang. Rosenfeldt, who was on house arrest with an ankle monitor, sold drugs from the apartment. <\/p>\n

In the courtroom, he sat silently in the prisoner\u2019s box, visibly anxious before the judge delivered her lengthy ruling.<\/p>\n

Members of Brown\u2019s family could be heard sobbing as they listened to MacMillan-Brown explain her reasoning. She repeated the core principles of criminal law: the presumption of innocence and the requirement that guilt be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

That burden never shifts, she said.<\/p>\n

\"ANykera Brown died of a single gunshot wound to the head in a Saskatoon apartment on Nov. 15, 2022. (Nykera Brown\/Facebook)The arguments\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the trial, the Crown had argued Rosenfeldt killed Brown out of fear that she was preparing to leave him and disrupt his drug-dealing operation, pointing to his admitted lies to police after her death \u2014 including a false claim that masked intruders had broken into the apartment and shot her. He also claimed he didn\u2019t hide the gun that killed her, but later admitted he had.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His blatant lying does not mean he’s guilty, the judge ruled.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Andrew Rosenfeldt found not guilty in killing of Nykera Brown:\"\"<\/p>\n

Andrew Rosenfeldt found not guilty in killing of Nykera Brown<\/p>\n

A Saskatoon judge acquitted Andrew Rosenfeldt of killing his girlfriend Nykera Brown. Rosenfeldt was found not guilty of second-degree murder.<\/p>\n

The defence argued at trial that Brown died by suicide, relying on evidence of mental-health struggles, prior crises, and testimony that it was physically possible for her to have pulled the trigger on herself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt law, however, my role was not, and could not be, to decide between two extremes,” MacMillan-Brown told court. “My role in this case was to answer the question, ‘Did the Crown prove Rosenfeldt guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Mental health struggles\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s mental health in the months before her death played a big part in the trial.<\/p>\n

The judge referred to police encounters, journal entries, and testimony showing periods of acute crisis alongside moments of stability, insight, and hope.<\/p>\n

Friends and family cried as the judge read parts of Brown\u2019s journal: \u201cEnd me please, I hate everything about me \u2026 I hate how no one understands me.”<\/p>\n

The judge noted that six months before her death, Brown wrote in her journal, \u201cI want to get my life back.\u201d She was trying to get into detox and rehab, and had written a letter to her young son saying, “Mommy is working hard to get better, love you little man.”<\/p>\n

Defence reaction\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy initial reaction is that I\u2019m just happy to live in Canada, in a country that allows and encourages justices of the Court of King\u2019s Bench to render such courageous judgments,\u201d defence lawyer Chris Murphy said outside the courthouse.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He acknowledged the emotional toll of the trial for the victim’s loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel terrible for Miss Brown\u2019s family,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, this is a decision that I believe is a just one \u2014 and one that people in Saskatoon and in the province can be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he believed Rosenfeldt was innocent from the start and that it was a difficult case with a lot at stake.<\/p>\n

Rosenfeldt’s mother, Janet McNiven, told CBC News she’s happy and relieved that her son is a free man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-445110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}