Alexander Dennis was sentenced Friday afternoon to life in prison with no chance of parole for 12 years for the brutal murder of Gordon Tubman in 2010.

The sentence, handed down by Yukon Supreme Court Justice Ron Veale, was consistent with the joint submission by the Crown and defence lawyers.

Dennis, 21, had pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder for what Veale called the "cold-blooded” killing of Tubman, who was 41 at the time of his death.

On Aug. 14, 2010 Tubman and Franklin Charlie met with Dennis, then an 18-year-old, street-level cocaine dealer.

Earlier, Tubman had approached Charlie at a bar trying to find out where he could get some cocaine.

According to the joint statement of facts, Charlie agreed to help Tubman, and the two eventually met with Dennis and returned to Tubman's trailer.

The three men drank beer at the trailer and Charlie and Tubman smoked crack before picking up a rifle for target practice. Dennis had been awake for five straight days on a cocaine binge.

During a sentencing hearing last month, Crown prosecutor David McWhinnie told the court that "at some point during the proceedings, Mr. Dennis said to Mr. Charlie: ‘I'm gonna kill this guy.'”

Charlie, McWhinnie said, did not think Dennis was serious.

Not long after Charlie heard the rifle being loaded and a shot fired, he looked up to see Tubman slumped over at a table.

The trailer was then set ablaze, with Tubman's body inside.

Charlie said he was still in the trailer when the fire was set and only managed to escape through a back window.

It's not clear whether it was Charlie or Dennis who set the trailer on fire. The arson charge against Dennis has been stayed, meaning it can be resurrected for up to one year.

The two men left the scene by foot, at one point finding themselves in a swampy area where Charlie pushed the rifle into the mud. The RCMP recovered the murder weapon in October 2011.

Dennis and Charlie ended up near the Kopper King at around 9:30 a.m. where they caught a cab.

Tubman's body was discovered on Aug. 15, 2010 among the charred remains of his trailer on the Copper Haul Road.

Charlie, who was arrested two months later for an unrelated matter, told a guard at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre he was concerned a connection might be made to boots he'd left at the murder scene.

Police were able to match Dennis' DNA to beer cans found at the scene and his fingerprints were discovered on Tubman's truck.

But two undercover operations aimed at securing a confession from Dennis were unsuccessful.

An acquaintance of Dennis' reported him to the Crime Stoppers hotline after he confessed to the murder while inebriated.

Dennis finally admitted to the murder in July 2013 after being questioned by police and listening to heartfelt statements from Tubman's family.

Veale highlighted the importance of Dennis' confession given the Crown's weak case.

Charlie, he noted, suffers from cognitive difficulties, which impact his reliability as a witness.

Veale noted that Dennis waived his right to a Gladue report, which would have required the court to make special cultural considerations, given his aboriginal heritage.

Dennis hails from Adam's Lake, a small First Nations community in the Fraser Valley.

Calling the crime "outrageous,” Veale told a full courtroom Friday that Dennis claims he was raised in a nurturing environment.

But in Grade 8, he dropped out of school and began drinking, coming under the influence of a gang-affiliated cousin.

Dennis joined the Redd Alert gang in his mid-teens. He eventually disaffiliated with the gang and moved north to Whitehorse.

Last month, members of Tubman's family offered victim impacts statements during Dennis' sentencing hearing.

His sister, Corry Rusnak, told the court of the pain she experienced "shovelling through ash and lifting burnt chunks of his house .... I can still smell that fire.”

She noted the blaze destroyed any mementos her family might have kept in remembrance of her brother.

Veale has ordered that the victim impact statements be forwarded to the National Parold Board.

– With files from Christopher Reynolds.