Woman convicted of lesser charge in slaying

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This article was published 02/09/2025 (208 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Brandon judge convicted a Sioux Valley woman of the lesser charge of manslaughter after she had been tried for second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of her cousin in 2022.

“I find that the accused did not have the requisite intent to support the finding of second-degree murder,” Court of King’s Bench Justice Elliot Leven said in a written decision on Tuesday. “The Crown has proved manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt.”

He described the crime as irrational.

“It was not an innocent accident, and it was not self-defence,” he wrote. “It was a profoundly irrational action by a person badly impaired by alcohol and drugs.”

Leven laid out the agreed statement of facts in the decision.

In December 2022, the accused and the victim — who were cousins — spent the evening together drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana and using methamphetamine. The accused pulled out a knife at one point and said if she needed to use it, she would, the judge wrote.

They later went to a friend’s house, where the two started to argue. The victim made comments about the accused’s dead brother and called him a “bitch.” They began to push and shove each other.

During her trial in January, the accused testified that they fought for an extended period of time and that she “feared for her life.” She said she had no option and “just did it.”

She testified that she went to her aunt’s house before going home and washing her clothing.

An RCMP officer arrived at the residence where the pair were fighting at around 1 a.m. and found the victim lying on the floor. She was still alive but couldn’t breathe, and there appeared to be a puncture wound to her chest.

He gave the victim first aid for roughly 10 to 15 minutes until paramedics arrived and pronounced her dead.

Between roughly 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. the accused “barged” into a friend’s house and said, “I just stabbed (the victim) and saw her bleed out.” The accused was shaking and said she threw the knife in a bush on the way home.

At around 2 a.m. the accused spoke to another friend and said that she was going to jail and mentioned self-defence.

The accused was arrested at a gas station later that evening.

A pathologist found the victim’s cause of death to be a knife wound.

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison argued that the accused stabbed the victim out of self-defence, but if the judge didn’t agree, the charge should be reduced to manslaughter.

“Defence counsel tried to portray the accused as a ‘peacemaker’ as opposed to an aggressor,” Leven wrote.

Crown attorney Brett Rach focused on the contradictions between testimonies, including that the accused said she stabbed the victim in a bedroom and later said she stabbed her in the hallway.

She also claimed she left the knife in the house, while two other witnesses said she threw it in a bush or on the road.

“No one is alleging that the stabbing was accidental, and there would be no evidence to support that notion,” Leven wrote.

He called the accused’s version of the stabbing “vague and frankly confusing.”

“Even if the accused had initially feared that the deceased might pick up the knife and stab her, it is hard to understand how that fear could have persisted even after the accused had the knife in her own hands,” Leven wrote.

“In short, it is just not possible to characterize the stabbing itself as either reasonable or appropriate,” Leven said, finding that the argument for self-defence failed.

However, Leven acknowledged her severe impairment and believed that she had no motive to kill her cousin.

He also considered the accused’s post-incident actions, which included her unreliable answers about where she left the knife and the fact that she washed her clothing immediately after, which he called the behaviour of someone who wanted to conceal their involvement in a stabbing.

“The best explanation for this irrational, inconsistent behaviour must be the severe impairment by alcohol and drugs,” he wrote.

Considering all these factors, Leven found the accused guilty of manslaughter.

The lawyers in the case ordered a pre-sentence report that will include Gladue factors, which is expected to take about five weeks to complete.

A publication ban prevented the release of any information that could identify the victim or witnesses in the case.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com