Man found guilty of killing mother with hatchet

A Brandon man has been found guilty of killing his 71-year-old mother with a hatchet in the fall of 2023 after his defence lawyers argued he should be held not criminally responsible during his trial.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Elliot Leven provided counsel with his written decision that found 47-year-old Gabriel Heymans guilty of second-degree murder on Monday.

The document containing the reasons for the decision was not made available to the Sun.

Heymans, who listened to the hearing by phone from the Brandon Regional Health Centre, will be sentenced at a later date.

During Heymans’ trial in April, court heard he lived with his mother, Maureen Heymans, for seven years in a two-bedroom apartment at 264 McDiarmid Dr. and hadn’t spoken to her for more than a year before her death.

Her autopsy report showed she had five chop wounds in her head, along with several cuts on her right arm, hand and one of her fingers.

Heymans told police the last time he saw his mother awake was when he returned home from the grocery store in the afternoon on Oct. 25, 2023, and she was eating food in the kitchen.

Heymans said he took a nap until 5 p.m., when he woke up, made Pizza Pops and watched two movies before falling asleep again.

Around 5 a.m., he said, he woke up to make Pizza Pops again before going back to bed. When he finally got up for the day at 9:30 a.m., he saw his mother lying on the floor surrounded by blood with a hatchet close by, Heymans said.

He thought she was sleeping, noting that the pool of blood near her head wasn’t getting larger, so he didn’t believe her injuries were serious and never called 911, court heard during the trial.

Heymans said he kept the hatchet in a bag in his bedroom, along with loose change.

During his interview with police, Heymans said he believed an unknown attacker had entered the apartment and used the hatchet to injure his mother.

Surveillance footage showed his mother alive for the last time on Oct. 24, 2023, while she was checking the mail.

Her body was discovered on Nov. 3, 2023 by a maintenance man who knocked on the door before entering the suite and alerted police of the decomposing body.

When police arrived on scene, they made eye contact with Heymans, who had darted into another room before he was arrested.

Court heard Heymans had a traumatic brain injury in 1998, but a forensic psychiatrist ruled the accused was fit to stand trial and was ineligible for a not-criminally-responsible defence.

His lawyers argued the fact that Heymans continued with his daily routines, despite his mother’s decomposing body, showed he is someone who should not be held criminally responsible.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com