Accused killer said he couldn’t recall severe 1998 accident

A Brandon man accused of killing his 71-year-old mother had been severely injured in a workplace accident almost 30 years ago, court heard on Wednesday in Brandon.

Gabriel Heymans, 47, told Const. Tyler Nichol of the Brandon Police Service that he had no recollection of the 1998 accident during a police interview on Nov. 3, 2023 — the same day his mother’s body was found and he was arrested.

A recording of the interview was played in Court of King’s Bench during the third day of Heymans’ trial.

Heymans has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Maureen Heymans, whom court heard he shared an apartment with at 264 McDiarmid Dr. for seven years.

During the interview, Nichol read a newspaper article from 1998 to Heymans. The article said Heymans, at 19 years old, fell from an I-beam while working with a construction crew in Killarney building grain terminals.

The fall was 15 metres, and Heymans is said to have sustained broken legs, broken heels and back fractures.

The article said Heymans’ mother considered her son “lucky to be alive.”

Heymans said he didn’t remember that.

“That’s about you though, right? That’s who you are, right?” Nichol asked.

“I’m not that person. It must have been a different one,” Heymans said.

Nichol, who has been a member of BPS for roughly 12 years, was assigned as a constable in the Major Crimes Section during his involvement in the investigation. Nichol went to the apartment where Maureen’s body was found two times on Nov. 3, 2023.

His first visit was brief and for the purpose of obtaining information for the medical examiner, along with trying to confirm the deceased’s identity. He returned later in the day to search the apartment.

In the recorded interview with Nichol, Heymans said he was up at 5 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 26, 2023, and ate six Pizza Pops before going back to bed.

When he awoke at around 9:30 a.m., he saw his mother lying on the floor with “blood nearby,” along with his “axe,” which he usually kept in a bag in his bedroom, he said. He testified that he also kept change in the same bag.

“Your mom’s been lying there for eight days, how many times do you walk by her?” Nichol asked.

“Like five times a day,” Heymans said.

When Nichol asked what he thought she was doing, he said he thought she was sleeping and later said it looked like someone attacked her.

When Nichols asked how the unknown attacker took his axe from his bag, which had a significant amount of change in it, and proceeded to attack his mom between 5:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 26, 2023, Heymans said he didn’t know and that he was sleeping.

Nichol asked why Heymans didn’t call for help.

“I didn’t think it was that serious,” Heymans said.

Nichols asked him if he was raised by his mom and asked how she treated him.

Heymans said he only remembered the last seven years while he was living with his mother, and that they didn’t talk much. He said he “didn’t really know her.”

Crown attorneys Reid Girard and Rich Lonstrup also played a video of Brandon police Sgt. Russ Paterson interviewing Heymans the next morning.

Heymans told Paterson he hadn’t spoken to his mother in about a year and a half, despite the two living together.

When asked if they share food or household items, Heymans said they each bought their own food and they didn’t use each other’s stuff.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com