The only female facing charges in the homicide of Penticton’s Taig Savage pleaded not guilty in Kelowna Supreme Court today, April 7.
The accused is a minor and was charged alongside two others who were under 18 at the time of the offence, plus one adult. All four were arrested in April 2024 and originally charged with manslaughter; however, those charges were upgraded to second-degree murder in the 2021 death of the 22-year-old Penticton man.
Savage was found injured and unresponsive around 6 a.m. on Sept. 5, 2021, on the track at Penticton Secondary School. Paramedics were called, but the young man did not survive his injuries.
Police waited about a week before confirming Savage’s identity and have not made public his cause of death.
The accused, currently on trial in Kelowna Supreme Court, was 15 at the time of the offence.
The only female co-accused, now 20, was charged in a separate incident where she pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced in June 2025 to 40 days in jail, plus credit for two weeks of pre-trial custody.
The assault stems from a road rage incident that occurred in November 2023, when she allegedly struck a stranger in a downtown Penticton hotel parking lot. It was heard that the woman had been driving a pickup when the victim commented on her driving. After a brief argument, she followed him, parked, approached him on foot, and sucker-punched him. The unprovoked assault was caught on video and later reported to police.
Issac Hayes Jack is the only publicly named accused in the death of Savage.
The trial for the female accused in Savage’s death will continue throughout the week.