It’s been almost eight years since the body of Evangeline Billy was found along the shore of the Yukon River in June 2008.

This morning in Yukon Supreme Court, 35-year-old Alicia Murphy pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Murphy was originally convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced in 2009 to 14 years in prison without parole.

The conviction was overturned by the Yukon Court of Appeal in 2014 because of improper procedures, and a new trial was ordered.

The trial was scheduled for next month, when the unexpected plea was entered this morning.

Reading this morning from a joint submission prepared by the Crown and defence lawyers, Crown prosecutor Noel Sinclair recommended the court release Murphy from custody based on time already served, and impose a three-year probation order.

The joint submission called for a sentence of nine years in prison for manslaughter, but with credit for more than six years already served taken into account, Murphy should be released, Sinclair told Supreme Court Justice Leigh Gower.

Gower adjourned court shortly before noon to consider the sentencing submissions.

After reconvening court at approximately 12:30 this afternoon, Gower announced he was accepting the sentencing submission, resulting in Murphy’s release and a three-year probation order.

The court was packed this morning, mostly with members of the victim’s family and friends who had driven in from Carmacks to hear the guilty plea. They included Billy’s daughter, who was nine at the time of her mother’s death.

Reading from an agreed statement of facts, Sinclair told the court Murphy was on bail back in June 2008, accused of a violent domestic assault.

She was to keep the peace, abstain from alcohol and drugs, and stay out of bars.

Murphy had been partying with friends and was drunk and high on crack cocaine on the evening of June 21, 2008, the court heard this morning.

She left her friends shortly before midnight in search of more drugs and alcohol when she came across Billy along a trail beside the river, sometime between midnight and 5 a.m.

The Crown prosecutor told the court while Murphy was attempting to rob Billy of money and drugs, Billy suffered two substantial lacerations on the head.

Murphy then dragged Billy’s body to the river’s edge and pushed her head underwater. When she pulled her head back up, Billy was dead.

Sinclair said Murphy pulled down Billy’s pants and underwear in an attempt to disguise the crime, then pushed Billy’s body into the river.

Murphy joined her friends again to continue drinking and and smoking crack when later she told a couple of people she may have harmed Billy and done something to cover up the crime.

The RCMP arrested Murphy the next day.

An autopsy concluded the cause of death was drowning.

In making his sentencing submissions, Sinclair read from a couple of victim impact statements, including a statement from Billy’s daughter.

The daughter said she is afraid of Murphy; afraid that if she runs into Murphy, she will be hurt.

She has been robbed of her mother watching her graduate, and of her mother seeing her many accomplishments through life, the daughter said.

There will be no mother to help her plan her wedding; no mother to see her bear her children.

“When this is all over, I hope that for your children’s sake, you change your life around and give them what we will never get from our mother.”

Another of Billy’s children wrote: “Alicia Murphy has cut a hole in my soul that I fear will never be filled.”

See more coverage in Monday’s Star.