Family members detail pain and loss in manslaughter case

Penny Antoine said she will forever carry the pain of hearing her daughter call out for help after being fatally stabbed by her half-brother — Penny’s son — who is awaiting sentencing for manslaughter.

“Dealing with the loss of both my daughter and son, knowing she’ll never come home to me, and he one day will … has affected me to where I feel broken,” Penny said in her victim impact statement, read by Crown attorney Mark Finnbogason on Friday in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench.

“I love my son and daughter unconditionally, and I can never choose one over the other. My heart won’t let me,” she said.

Family and friends filled the gallery, some breaking into quiet sobs or wiping their tears with tissues, as Finnbogason read from the statements.

Ernest Blacksmith Jr. previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the stabbing death of 30-year-old Aimee-Jo Antoine on Sioux Valley Dakota Nation in 2022.

Blacksmith was initially charged with second-degree murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge on the first day of his trial in May 2025.

After Blacksmith pleaded guilty, the Crown detailed facts behind the guilty plea, reading from an agreed statement of facts.

On Nov. 19, 2022, Aimee-Jo, Blacksmith and other family, including Penny, were drinking together. Penny eventually went to bed, leaving the siblings alone.

She later awoke to the sound of screaming, and when she went to see what happened, she saw Aimee-Jo on the couch with her legs positioned in front of her and Blacksmith with a knife in his hand, yelling at her.

Penny positioned herself in front of Aimee-Jo, but Blacksmith stabbed his sibling in the legs multiple times while he yelled at both women.

When police arrived, the victim was unconscious on the floor and surrounded by blood. Emergency medical services also responded but couldn’t resuscitate Aimee-Jo. She was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m.

After an autopsy, it was determined her cause of death was multiple sharp force injuries. She had stab wounds in each of her legs and her left shoulder.

The lawyers were scheduled to make submissions for an appropriate sentence on Friday. However, defence lawyer Shimon Segal messaged the Crown the night before that he would be unable to make the trip from Winnipeg because of forecasted road conditions.

Blacksmith’s sentencing hearing has been rescheduled for April 14. Since the family was already there for the hearing, the judge allowed the victim impact statements to be read.

Finnbogason read the statements on behalf of Penny and Kelly Antoine, the mother and sister of Blacksmith and Aimee-Jo. Blacksmith’s head hung low as he listened from the prisoner box.

Penny said it hurts too much to say or even hear her late daughter’s name. She said Blacksmith will have to live with what he’s done for the rest of his life, and she hopes he will be able to come home soon.

“I wish for him to come home so we, as a broken family, can start being together.”

Kelly, in her statement, said she and her sister were supposed to grow old together, but now, Aimee-Jo will never have that experience.

She recalled the days following Aimee-Jo’s death, cleaning up her blood and planning her funeral.

“For us to clean up the blood from this scene was very traumatizing. I never thought in my life I would have to do anything like that,” she said in her statement. “Planning her funeral was the very first time I had to plan for a funeral. I was scared.

“Seeing her lay in that box was the hardest thing I ever had to go through.”

Kelly said her sister was working on turning her life around and didn’t deserve to die the way she did. In the years since, she has wondered what Aimee-Jo’s last thoughts were.

“I’ve always been around to protect her. This time, I wasn’t even around to help her.”

She said while part of her wants Blacksmith to “go away,” another part of her doesn’t want him to, as she can still talk and laugh with him — something she can’t do with her sister anymore.

“You will always be my brother. I will always love you,” she said. “I hope you get away from here and go make a life for yourself.”

» sanderson@brandonsun.com