A man ac­cused of set­ting his un­cle on fire has been sen­tenced to 15 years in prison.

Yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Maria Wil­son sen­tenced Kurt Wise­man to 15 years in prison for the manslaugh­ter of his un­cle, Glen Chester, re­solv­ing a case that be­gan with a fam­i­ly dis­pute in Waller­field, Ari­ma, in Sep­tem­ber 2013.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the con­flict was sparked by an ar­gu­ment over cig­a­rette smoke. It es­ca­lat­ed when Wise­man threw a flam­ma­ble sub­stance, caus­ing se­vere burns to Chester. Chester died No­vem­ber 2013 from med­ical com­pli­ca­tions re­lat­ed to his in­juries, two months af­ter the in­ci­dent.

Wise­man, 23 years old at the time, was ini­tial­ly charged with mur­der but plead­ed guilty to manslaugh­ter on Sep­tem­ber 6, 2024. His plea fol­lowed a lengthy le­gal process that in­clud­ed an agree­ment with the State to re­duce the charge, cit­ing provo­ca­tion as a con­tribut­ing fac­tor.

The court con­sid­ered the vi­o­lent na­ture of the at­tack, the be­tray­al of trust with­in a fam­i­ly, and the psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pact on Chester’s loved ones. In mit­i­ga­tion, the court not­ed Wise­man’s re­morse, lack of a sig­nif­i­cant crim­i­nal his­to­ry, and ef­forts to re­ha­bil­i­tate through ed­u­ca­tion­al and mu­sic pro­grammes dur­ing his near­ly 11 years in pre­tri­al cus­tody.

Jus­tice Wil­son cal­cu­lat­ed an ini­tial sen­tence of 21 years, re­duc­ing it by four years for mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors and ap­ply­ing a one-third re­duc­tion for the guilty plea. Time al­ready served fur­ther low­ered the sen­tence, leav­ing Wise­man with 15 years to com­plete.