Sioux Valley woman gets 9 years for killing her 26-year-old cousin

A Sioux Valley woman who fatally stabbed her cousin in 2022 was sentenced on Thursday to nine years behind bars.

Rennie Williams, 29, was found not guilty of second-degree murder and was instead convicted of manslaughter after standing trial in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench.

“The loss is indescribable, and the sentence that is imposed will never be able to make up for what Rennie did,” Crown attorney Brett Rach said.

He asked the court to impose a sentence of 10 years for the “senseless killing” of Naomi Williams, 26.

In a written decision after the trial, Justice Elliot Leven set out an agreed statement of facts.

Almost exactly three years ago, on Dec. 10, 2022, Rennie and Naomi spent the evening together drinking, smoking marijuana and using methamphetamine. Rennie pulled out a knife at one point in the night and said if she needed to use it, she would, Leven wrote.

Later, while at a friend’s house, the two cousins started to argue. Naomi made comments about Rennie’s dead brother, and they began to push and shove each other.

During the trial, Rennie testified that they fought for an extended period and she stabbed her cousin because she “feared for her life.” She said she had no option and “just did it.”

Rennie went to her aunt’s house before she went home and washed her clothing. At one point, Rennie went to a friend’s house, where she admitted to stabbing Naomi and throwing the knife in a bush.

When speaking with another friend, she said that she was going to jail and mentioned self-defence.

She was arrested later that evening at a gas station.

Rach argued Rennie poses a “significant risk to the safety of the public” and brought the court’s attention to her criminal record, which has recent and related violent convictions.

He specifically pointed to a 2020 aggravated assault conviction where he said she slashed the victim with a machete, and a 2021 conviction where he said she choked a woman and beat her with a metal bicycle bar.

“In relation to that offence, she was released from custody in February 2022. A few months later she killed Naomi,” Rach said. “There is a clear and persistent pattern of violence.”

In a previous pre-sentence report, Rach said Rennie acknowledged her problem with alcohol and that she becomes violent when she’s under the influence. However, she has taken no steps to address this issue, he said.

Rach said there were several aggravating factors.

“It’s our submission that Rennie initiated the physical assault, and that this physical assault was prolonged and relentless.”

Naomi had nine sharp-force injuries — one of those being a stab wound to the left side of her chest, which punctured her left lung and the sac around her heart, the court heard.

She also had bruises and scratches on several areas of her body and clumps of hair missing, Rach said.

He said Rennie made no effort to get help for Naomi, which showed a “callous disregard for her life.”

“If anything, Rennie went all around the community … and is basically gossiping about what she’s done.”

Shannon Williams, Naomi’s sister, told the court that she will always remember her mother screaming and crying “at the loss of her baby girl.”

“It was a hard time for all of us, telling my niece that her mother, Naomi, wasn’t coming home,” she said. “It’s hard to hold back tears when she approaches me because this was my little sister too. I usually cry with her so we can get our feelings out together.”

She said she never thought that her sister would be a part of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women statistic because her life “was tragically taken away by her own relative.”

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison argued for a shorter sentence and called the Crown’s suggestion “excessive.”

He said the Crown’s comments that Rennie was gossiping instead of trying to get help for Naomi weren’t accurate.

“One Crown witness said that when she found out that Williams had passed away, she was crying hysterically, couldn’t stop crying,” he said.

As for not getting help, he said she testified that she knew people were coming to the residence and even sat with Naomi for several minutes before Naomi told her to leave.

Harrison said the Gladue factors in Rennie’s life are prominent, and the court should take them seriously.

Both of her parents had issues with alcohol, and she witnessed and was subject to physical abuse in her childhood.

He said she was exposed to drug use at four years old, and started using marijuana at 10, ecstasy at 12 and crystal methamphetamine at an early age as well.

In 2016, her mother was murdered and in 2020 two of her brothers died by suicide, the court heard.

Harrison said Rennie is dealing with the loss of Naomi too.

“This was somebody she was close with … She told me she thinks about it when she gets up in the morning, she thinks about it when she goes to bed at night and she thinks about it during the day.”

When given a chance to speak, Rennie apologized to her family.

“I would like to move on with my life and continue on the road to rehabilitation, and I wish that … in the future, they find it in their hearts to forgive me, because I think about this every day,” she said, her voice breaking at the end.

Justice Elliot Leven emphasized that while he’s sympathetic toward Rennie’s personal circumstances and upbringing, he has to put the safety of the public first.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com