Sentencing date set for career criminal convicted of second-degree murder of Jesse Kennedy in Mission
John Ross Powers convicted after lengthy trial and will get credit for nearly five years in custody when he's finally sent to federal prison
June 17, 2026
A sentencing delay until October for the man who murdered Jesse Kennedy on the streets of Mission nearly three years ago means the killer will get even more enhanced credit for time served.
John Powers was found guilty of second-degree murder by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Caldwell on March 20, 2026 after a five-week trial that began on Nov. 13, 2025. The case began in front of a jury but Justice Caldwell later dismissed the jury and heard the case alone.
According to the latest B.C. Supreme Court sentencing list, Powers is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 9, 2026. That means he will have spent approximately 39 months in pre-trial custody. At the usual enhanced credit of 1.5 days to one, that means he will get 58 months or nearly five years credit before his actual sentence begins.
Second-degree murder comes with a mandatory life sentence with no parole for a minimum of 10 years. The only decision Justice Caldwell has to make is how many years before Powers is eligible for parole between 10 and 25 years.
A caring man trapped in addiction
Jesse Patrick Kennedy was a “caring young man trapped in his addiction,” according to the former co-ordinator of Street Hope Mission.
“Jesse was always one of the first to volunteer to help cleaning up after our breakfast program was over,” Shelagh Nielsen told Something Worth Reading about Kennedy in late 2025 when the trial began. “Jesse had a special place in the thoughts of all the volunteers that worked along side me.”
Kennedy often had stretches of sobriety, but like so many people struggling, he would return to drugs, trapped in his addiction.
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It was July 13, 2023 before 6 p.m., when police were called to a location near the intersection of Lougheed Highway and Highway 11 in Mission. Officers found Kennedy suffering from stab wounds to his neck and chest. He was taken to hospital where he died of his injuries.
Powers was arrested at the scene.
Solid circumstantial evidence was enough to convict 39-year-old John Ross Powers of killing Kennedy in 2023. A combination of CCTV footage and data from Powers’ own court-ordered electronic monitoring device, along with other physical evidence, proved his actions correlated with the time and location that Kennedy was stabbed in neck and chest severing an artery and puncturing his lung.
“I find that the only reasonable inference to be drawn from the evidence taken as a whole is that Powers attacked Kennedy on the lower trail and inflicted the stab wounds to Kennedy's neck and chest,” Justice Caldwell said on March 20.
“I find that Powers' description of his movement on July 13 is objectively proven to be untrue. It was self-serving, it was intended to deceive.”
Four days after the murder, on July 17, 2023, the Lower Mainland Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) issued a news release including a photo of 42-year-old Jesse Kennedy in hopes of advancing the investigation. IHIT was looking for anyone who might have witnessed the killing or any altercation or interaction between Kennedy, Powers, or others.
It was believed that the two men knew one another, although Pierotti said police didn’t know the nature of the relationship.
There were no direct eyewitnesses to the incident where Kennedy was killed.
A history of violence
Powers has a lengthy and serious criminal history. A year before he was arrested and charged with killing Kennedy, he was charged with stabbing a homeless man in Mission, Arthur Lonsdale on Sept. 12, 2022.
And 14 years ago he and five other men kidnapped a wealthy Metro Vancouver man in an attempt to get a million-dollar ransom. Powers was actually under police surveillance when he and five other men participated in the kidnapping attempt. Officers witnessed the attack by two of the men and performed an emergency takedown. The four others were later arrested and charged. Five of the men pleaded guilty to the kidnapping, but one was deemed unfit to stand trial after suffering a serious beating in prison.
Powers was sentenced to six years in prison. He was later given a further four years to be served consecutively after a covert search warrant of an apartment he rented to store weapons for one of the co-conspirators turned up five semi-automatic rifles, two other rifles, a submachine gun, a pistol, a revolver, a silencer, along with 797 rounds of ammunition.
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Paul J. Henderson
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