Guelph man pleads guilty to manslaughter [Video]

A Guelph man has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting he struck another man in the head repeatedly with a baseball bat.

Alan James Stemmler died in February 2022 after emergency responders were called to a townhouse complex on York Road.

Joseph Stafford was originally charged with second-degree murder in Stemmler’s death. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter in court last week.

A synopsis provided to the court for the guilty plea indicates that the two men knew each other and were part of a community of people who used drugs in Guelph.

The synopsis describes how, on the night of Feb. 21, 2022, Stafford, then 40-years-old, was at Stemmler’s unit with a number of people, most of whom were smoking methamphetamines and were under the influence of psychotropic drugs.

Witnesses described Stemmler shaking back and forth on the bed. Stafford hit him with a baseball bat. A witness described hearing eight to ten blows.

Stafford was the first person to …