Prosecutors have stayed manslaughter charges against two B.C. RCMP officers in the 2017 death of an Indigenous man after a pathologist determined Dale Culver died of a heart attack, not blunt force trauma as was initially believed.

Prosecutor Joseph Saulnier told a provincial court judge in the Prince George courthouse Friday the Crown decided to end proceedings against Const. Paul Ste-Marie and Const. Jean Francois Monette after asking Ontario chief forensic pathologist Michael Pollanen to review the conclusions of the first pathologist to examine Culver’s death.

The 35-year-old Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en man died in police custody on July 18, 2017, after being arrested and struggling with police.

His death and its aftermath have been viewed by civil rights advocates and First Nations leadership groups as a key test of the B.C. justice system’s ability to hold police accountable, with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) saying it believes it is the first time law enforcement in the province had been charged in the death of an Indigenous man.

But new findings shared by Crown counsel Friday doomed the case against Ste-Marie and Monette.