Tuktoyaktuk (July 17/06) - Former Tuktoyaktuk RCMP constable James Elias will spend the next four and a half years in prison.

Justice, Vital Ouellette, sentenced Elias to six years, but deducted time he'd already spent in custody.

The sentence was delivered in a Tuktoyaktuk courtroom last week after Elias pleaded guilty on two charges.

Timeline Feb. 24, 2003: Brian Elias and Samuel Gruben Jr. are shot while attending a party at Jim Elias' home in Tuktoyaktuk. Feb. 25, 2003: Brian Elias' body is discovered in the snow the next morning, as Jim Elias barricades himself in his home with two children before surrendering to police. He is soon after released on $10,000 bail. November 2003: Elias is ordered to stand trial and charged with second-degree murder. January 2005: Supreme Court Justice Paul Chrumka rules an impartial jury cannot be found in Tuktoyaktuk, orders a new trial be held in Inuvik. May 2005: Elias' Inuvik trial ends in a hung jury. The jurors cannot reach a conclusion after two days of deliberation, and a new trial is requested. February 2006: Jim Elias is convicted on two counts of assault in a case unrelated to the shooting. He is given four months in jail for threatening, and assaulting a pregnant woman in Norman Wells. The attack includes throwing a computer monitor at the woman. April 2006: A new trial date is set for the shooting case. It is slated for July 11 in Inuvik. July 11, 2006: Elias opts to forgo a jury trial, and pleaded guilty to two charges.

While he denied being responsible for second-degree murder - which had at one point been sought by the Crown - Elias admitted his guilt to charges of manslaughter and assault with a weapon causing bodily harm.

In 2003, Elias shot his brother Brian twice in the abdomen with a hunting rifle, during a drinking party at Jim Elias' home.

Another man, Samuel Gruben Jr., was shot in the left shoulder.

Brian Elias' dead body was in the snow the next morning.

It's not yet known where Elias will serve his sentence, said Loretta Colton, the Crown attorney who prosecuted the case, but this marks the near-conclusion of what has been three-year-long legal process including cancellations, a hung jury and two changes of venue.

While Elias' trial was originally slated for Tuktoyaktuk, it was moved to Inuvik after an impartial jury could not be found. A jury trial was scheduled for July 11 in Inuvik's Supreme Court, but was cancelled as Elias filed a motion to be tried by a Justice alone.

Relatives of Jim and Brian Elias declined to speak with News/North.