Inmate serving life sentence dies after fight at Stony Mountain penitentiary

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This article was published 08/01/2018 (3008 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man twice convicted of the slaying of a woman because she refused to have sex with him has been killed in prison.

The Correctional Service of Canada has confirmed in a statement that 42-year-old Max Maurice Richard died on Sunday, while serving his sentence at Stony Mountain Institution, and the RCMP says it is treating the incident as a homicide.

Richard was convicted in September 2016, for second-degree murder in the August 2011 death of 24-year-old April Hornbrook, and sentenced last January to life in prison with no chance of parole for 13 years.

Richard had originally been convicted by a jury in February 2015, but the province’s highest court overturned the verdict and ordered a new trial after ruling the criminal background of one of the witnesses who testified against him wasn’t properly disclosed.

Kathy Bueti, Richard’s lawyer, said she was “shocked” at hearing the news.

“He wasn’t having any problems at the institution,” Bueti said.

“He had appealed the conviction and sentence and we had just set an appeal date for April… he always maintained his innocence.

“His position all along was he was he knew her and was friendly and he had never had any problem or shown any aggression towards her. He just had the misfortune of being seen with her before it happened.”

But Bueti said that last meeting between Richard and Hornbrook was 30 hours before the woman’s body was found in an area off Main Street “where transient people frequented”.

RCMP said Richard died, while two other inmates were injured, during a fight between “numerous inmates” at about 9 p.m.

RCMP said Richard was rushed to hospital, but later died from his injuries, while the two others, aged 30 and 21, were treated for non-life threatening injuries.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Paul Manaigre said no one has been charged yet with the slaying, but Stonewall RCMP and officers with the Winnipeg Major Crime Unit are continuing to investigate.

“It was quite a large fight,” he said.

Correctional Service Canada said Richard was pronounced dead at about 11:48 p.m. It said Richard had been serving his sentence since Jan. 27, 2017, and it has notified his next of kin about his death.

At Richard’s sentencing, Justice Karen Simonsen of Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench refused a defence bid asking for a stay of proceedings because it had taken so long for the matter to get to court, but did say it was “a mitigating factor” in his case.

“This was a brutal murder committed in the context of a sexual relationship and Mr. Richard’s pursuit of Ms. Hornbrook for more sex,” Simonsen said.

Court was told Hornbrook had been at the Northern Hotel with her boyfriend on Aug. 26, 2011, but after her boyfriend was thrown out for assaulting her, Richard spent the rest of the evening “wooing” her.

The Crown told the court the pair had known each other for three years and were “friends with benefits” and had refused to have sex with him the night she was killed, but the judge said she couldn’t say beyond a reasonable doubt that’s why Richard killed her.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca