Man convicted of manslaughter, not murder, in Vancouver Starbucks stabbing

VANCOUVER – A man has been found guilty of manslaughter but cleared of murder in the 2023 stabbing outside a Vancouver coffee shop of a father who whose death was captured on video and shared widely online.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Ker told a courtroom Wednesday that after looking at the cumulative factors that contributed to the death of Paul Schmidt outside the Starbucks where he was stabbed six times, she could not be certain that Inderdeep Singh Gosal had the intent required for a second-degree murder conviction.

Schmidt had been pushing his daughter in a stroller before he was stabbed.

“What started as a verbal argument between Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Gosal quickly erupted into a shocking, violent and traumatic altercation on the patio of the Starbucks,” Ker said. “It was short and brutal.”

Gosal watched from the prisoner box, dressed in a blue sweater, as Ker read her lengthy ruling describing the 90-second interaction between the two men, that ended with a 28-second physical altercation and Schmidt’s death.

Ker said Schmidt was the initial aggressor and video showed Gosal assuming a defensive stance and only opening the knife after Schmidt threw a punch.

She said Gosal experienced “a moment of panic” and a “fear for his life” during the sudden altercation, on top of being mildly intoxicated and having a mental health disorder. 

Each of those factors alone was not enough for a successful defence but they cumulatively contributed to her ruling, she said.

Gosal’s lawyers had argued in the judge-alone trial that a manslaughter conviction was more appropriate, saying the attack involved “overreaction due to mental illness” rather than a “deliberate intent to kill.”

But Crown prosecutors said they had established Gosal knew his actions could have resulted in Schmidt’s death.

The judge said she spent a significant amount of time reviewing footage from the “unblinking eye” of two CCTV cameras that recorded the interaction. 

Footage played in court in February showed Schmidt approach Gosal, who was smoking something near the Starbucks entrance.

Gosal had previously apologized for what happened, saying in court that he “didn’t want to hurt him that day, but I also wasn’t thinking right. I wasn’t on my medications. I wish I could go back in time.”

The court heard Gosal has schizophrenia and he testified he had stopped taking his medication about three months before the killing, and believed a knife he said he found in an alley was a “sign from God” he needed to protect himself.

But the Crown cited several instances of Gosal changing his story, including about buying the knife, exaggerating to police how much alcohol he consumed and presenting psychiatrists with self-serving depictions of his psychological state.

A hearing will be held later this month to determine a date for sentencing.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2026.