A 30-year-old Langley man who legally changed his name to Nikki Sixx Serafino has pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter of a Surrey man shot and killed in 2009.
Originally, Serafino had been charged with second degree murder, but on the first day of what was set to be his trial, he made the plea.
Serafino, who was previously known as Jeffery Alan Smith, was arrested in April 2010, in connection with the murder of 33-year-old Damon Michael Martin.
It was the morning of May 12, 2009, around 8:45 a.m., when Martin was shot in the stomach while inside a house in the Panorama Ridge area of Surrey.
Martin stumbled out of the house, attempting to flee. He got as far as Highway 10 at 132 Street, when he collapsed on the roadside.
A passerby called 911, believing Martin had been run over.
When police arrived they saw that Martin had been a victim of a shooting, not a hit-and-run.
An air ambulance landed on the busy roadway and rushed Martin to hospital but he died of his injuries a few hours later.
The murder wasn’t linked to drugs, gangs or organized crime. It appears the victim and accused did know each other and some dispute may have taken place at the house.
Serafino, who police have learned is a huge fan of the heavy metal band Motley Crue, changed his name to match that of the band’s guitarist Nikki Sixx.
Searches of court documents do list a Jeffery Alan Smith as having trouble with the law in Dawson Creek and Kelowna in the early 2000s.
Martin was also known to police, but he seemed to be on a different track of late, said police at the time of his murder.