'It's heartbreaking': Victim's family upset with plea deal for Steven Skinner

The man who was arrested on a beach in Venezuela after being on the run for more than five years admitted Tuesday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court that he killed Stacey Adams in Lake Echo, N.S., in 2011.

Steven Skinner's plea deal and admission to a lesser charge of manslaughterleft Adams's family upset.

"It just gives them a game of chess to work with," said Adams's mother, Gloria Adams.

The long legal process her family has had to endure since her son was shot and killed eight years agotook a turn for the worse Tuesday.

"It's heartbreaking is what it is," she said.

"I disagree, this is not a manslaughter case. I feel there should have been more people charged in this case as well."

Skinner, in custody in the Burnside jail for the last three years awaiting a trial for second-degree murder, wore a grey suit with a white shirt in court today.

Some witnesses to the killing may not have been seen as credible to a jury because of their involvement with criminal organizations, drugs and alcohol, said senior Crown prosecutor Eric Taylor.

Other witnesses wouldn't come forward, he said.

"The Achillesheel in this case is the fact that we had witnesses who refused to co-operate with the police, eye witnesses in fact. That would have been a different situation if they had."

The prosecutor's office opted to accept a guilty plea for manslaughter, rather than risk the chance of seeing Skinner walk free, said Taylor.

Skinner fled Nova Scotia immediately after Adams was shot, flying to Mexico.

Prior to his arrest in Venezuela in 2016 he was on Interpol's most-wanted list.

Last year, Colombian authorities alleged Skinner was a ringleader in a drug cartel and accused him of murdering an accomplice before he escaped to Venezuela.

Skinner will return to court in September for sentencing.