Man sentenced to life for cocaine-induced stabbing death of St. Albert teen

WARNING: The details of this story may be disturbing to some readers.

On Thursday, Kaj Alexander Randall pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for a stabbing that killed a 17-year-old girl and injured a 13-year-old girl in July 2024.

The brutal attack happened in the girl’s home in St. Albert last summer with a father figure they trusted.

Jaeden Chaisson was stabbed to death on July 18, 2024 in a townhouse in the Riverside area of the city directly north of Edmonton.

Due to the age of the victims, there was a publication ban protecting the identity of the 13-year-old girl. But on Thursday in court, now-14-year-old Brooklyn Janes fought to remove the ban on her identity.

This follows the decision by the fatal stabbing victim’s mother and Brooklyn’s aunt, Nicole Chaisson, to remove the publication ban from her daughter’s name earlier in the court case.

“We weren’t allowed to talk about [Jaeden], we were not allowed to show her face, but I want people to know what a beautiful person she was, the smile that she showed us all the time, this is who she was,” said Chaisson.

“This is what she needs to be remembered for, not for how she left us. So, I just want to honour the better parts of her story as opposed to the horrific ending that she had.”

“[Brooklyn] hasn’t had that inside of her for over a year now, so for her to make that decision for herself to come back, even just a little bit, it means a lot to us, gives us a little more hope for her.”

According to an agreed statement of facts, before the day of the attack, Randall had been a loving spouse to Kayla Chaisson and a loving father figure to Brooklyn Janes.

He had never been aggressive or violent towards either of the teens.

Randall, his common-law partner, Kayla Chaisson and her 13-year-old daughter Brooklyn had all lived together as a family for three years, and 17-year-old Jaeden moved in with her aunt and cousin a few weeks before the attack.

On July 18th, 2024, 28-year-old Randall got off work and went to Kayla’s work, where she was on shift, and had a beer while visiting with her. The agreed statement of facts said she didn’t notice anything unusual about his behaviour or mood.

After that, he left her workplace, bought some cocaine and returned to the home, while Kayla was still at work. They had a 10-minute phone call about an hour and a half later, during which Kayla also talked to her daughter and described both her partner and child as happy.

After that, things took a terrible turn.

WARNING: Graphic details ahead

Randall went into their ensuite bathroom on the top floor of the three-story home and snorted some of the cocaine he’d bought around 10 p.m. He then called Kayla again, but this time she noted his voice was unusually monotone and he sounded “off” enough that she wrapped up work and left to go home.

About five minutes later, Randall, armed with a kitchen knife, was down on the home’s middle floor living area.

He began stabbing Jaeden repeatedly in the head, neck, chest, and arms as she screamed for him to stop. Jaeden was stabbed a total of 21 times.

Brooklyn was in her bedroom upstairs talking to a friend on the phone when she overheard Jaeden screaming. She hung up. She didn’t know what was happening downstairs but could hear her cousin in pain. Brooklyn went to her bedroom door and tried to hold it shut, but Randall forced his way in.

He started to violently attacking the 13-year-old: stabbing, punching, kicking, and throwing her. She sustained at least 12 stab wounds.

He briefly left the room, during which time Brooklyn crawled under her bed and tried to call 911, but Randall returned too quickly. He flipped the mattress, found the girl, and began violently assaulting the girl again.

The girl described her mom’s partner as “looking crazy, breathing heavily, growling, and having eyes that were huge.” The statement of facts said he didn’t say anything during the attack.

At some point during the assault, his knife broke into pieces. Brooklyn then pretended to be dead, and Randall left the home and drove away.

The attacks on both girls lasted about five minutes from start to finish.

As soon as she could no longer hear her attacker in the house,  Brooklyn went downstairs to find Jaeden laying on the floor, severely injured but still alive.

Shortly after, a friend Jaeden had invited over arrived, saw the girls covered in blood and severely injured, and called police.

RCMP arrived to find Jaeden collapsed on the front lawn with deep stab wounds on her body. The officers jumped in to apply tourniquets and pressure on her wounds to stop the bleeding while waiting for paramedics to arrive.

Both girls were taken to the Stollery Children’s Hospital, but Jaeden’s injuries were too severe and she had lost a lot of blood. She went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance.

The 17-year-old suffered 14 more minor cuts, lacerations and stab wounds to her hands and arms, and seven more major stab wounds: three on the right of her neck, two on her shoulder, one hear her right clavicle, and one to the back of her head. One of the wounds damaged her carotid artery, which led to a great deal of blood loss and deprived her brain of oxygen.

Brooklyn’s physical injuries to her head, neck, shoulders and thorax were less severe and she was discharged from the hospital the next day.

Despite several surgeries and procedures to keep Jaeden alive, she was taken off life support two days after the attack and died in hospital on July 20, 2024.

Her cause of death was multiple sharp force stabbing injuries.

After leaving the scene of the attack, Randall got into his car and drove away erratically, glancing off another nearby building as he went down the alley.

He sent a text to his partner, saying he loved her. As he drove down Ray Gibbon Drive out of St. Albert towards Edmonton, he threw his phone out the window into the ditch. It was found by police the next day.

Randall went to his mom’s home in Edmonton. The next day, she saw the arrest warrant for her son in the news and questioned him, to which he said, “I think something is wrong with me.”

RCMP found him there on the day Jaeden died and arrested him without incident.

A family grieving, but still tight-knit

In court on Thursday, Brooklyn stood and said she looked up to Jaeden as a sister.

Nicole Chaisson, Jaeden’s mom and Brooklyn’s aunt, said the two teens would FaceTime every morning as they got ready for school. Brooklyn would spend weekends at her house, and Jaeden would go to Kayla’s.

“We’re a very, very close family,” Nicole said. “It’s not like we’re all doing our own thing.

“We all do it all together, the girls were just the next generation of the sisters doing it all together again. And you can definitely see that part — it’s left a big hole in Brooklyn.”

Nicole said she and her sister, Kayla, have remained close in spite of the horror their family has endured.

“She was just as much a victim in this as anybody else. I love my sister very much,” said Nicole.

Randall pleaded guilty and waived his right to a trial.

The defence said Randall was experiencing drug-induced psychosis when attacked the teens, and added he had no motive for the crime.

Through tears, Randall stood and told the courtroom, “I’m sorry for all the pain this has caused, I didn’t want any of this.”

In the courtroom, Justice Cheryl Arcand-Kootenauy sentenced Randall to life in prison with no chance of parole for 12 years.

He also has a concurrent sentence of seven years for the attack on Brooklyn.