Manitoba’s highest court has overturned a Winnipeg man’s conviction for murdering his mother when he was 16 years old, ruling the sentencing judge made critical errors in her instructions to the jury.
A jury in 2022 convicted the now 21-year-old man of second-degree murder in the 2019 bludgeoning death of his 51-year-old mother.
In a 47-page decision released Thursday, the Court of Appeal of Manitoba ordered a new trial for the man, finding Court of King’s Bench Justice Anne Turner — the sentencing judge — failed to properly instruct jurors on the issue of fabricated evidence.
The issue focused on whether the accused’s comments to 911 operators and police regarding his actions following the killing amounted to lies and, if so, whether that could be used by jurors to infer guilt.
“I am of the view that the errors in the instructions prejudiced the defence and, therefore, the young person’s right to a fair trial,” Justice Holly Beard wrote on behalf of the Appeal Court.
The accused’s mother was found bludgeoned to death in her bed in her Southdale home the morning of March 16, 2019.
One of the alleged lies occurred during a 911 call when the teen identified one of her mother’s co-workers as someone who had been “bothering her,” resulting in her transferring to another office.
Prosecutors alleged the teen pointed the finger at the man as the “perfect fall guy,” to divert suspicion from himself.
But the teen mentioned the man only when prompted by the 911 operator, the appeal court said. As well, four other people told police they had concerns about the man, including a co-worker who shared a text message from the victim, saying the man had threatened her and that “if something ever happens to me, it’s him.”
The accused’s comments were “consistent with the deceased’s own concerns and the expressed concerns of several other people,” Beard said. “Even without the young person having disclosed the problems between the deceased and (the co-worker, he) would have been identified as a possible suspect by others.”
The accused was handed a maximum youth sentence of seven years custody and community supervision. He was released on bail in February 2023, pending his appeal.
Jurors heard evidence at trial the victim, who shared custody of her son with her ex-husband, had been off work for several months due to a physical injury and mental-health issues.
The night before the killing, the accused bought flowers and prepared dinner for his mother — all part of a ruse, prosecutors alleged, to divert attention from himself.
Prosecutors said the woman was already dead when her son left home at 9:08 a.m. to take their dog for an unscheduled visit to pet daycare and other errands meant to provide him with an alibi. The man returned home at 10:38 a.m. and five minutes later called 911.
Security video from neighbouring houses showed no one else leaving or entering the house during the teen’s absence.
The woman was beaten and sustained at least a dozen blows to the head, possibly with a crowbar. Her arms were broken as she tried to fend off the attack.
Prosecutors alleged after killing his mother, the man poured bleach over her head, cleaned himself up, disposed of the murder weapon and his bloody clothing, then went outside to change the air filter in her car. Over the next 90 minutes, he sent numerous texts to his mother’s cellphone and others, while running the “errands.”
Thousands of text messages uncovered by police, some of which were provided to jurors at trial, showed the woman was dependant on her son for cooking, shopping, cleaning and other chores, beginning when he was as young as 14.
In a closing address to jurors, Crown attorney Jennifer Mann argued the victim had “few boundaries” with her son and treated him more like a partner.
“There is absolutely no doubt (he) was under a lot of pressure from his mother,” Mann said. “While (the victim) loved her son, she was needy, suffocating and a real burden on him. But was that why he killed her? We will likely never know for sure.”
The teen was represented on appeal by lawyer James Lockyer, founding director of Innocence Canada. Lockyer has been involved in overturning the wrongful convictions of David Milgaard, Kyle Unger, James Driskell, Frank Ostrowski, and, most recently, Brian Anderson, Allan (A.J.) Woodhouse and Clarence Woodhouse in the 1973 slaying of Winnipeg restaurant worker Ting Fong Chan.
At an appeal hearing last January, Lockyer argued electronic records placing the victim’s co-worker at their place of employment when the killing occurred could not be relied on to confirm his innocence, suggesting he could have used a borrowed employee card to exit his workplace, and would have had ample time to kill the woman while her son was out of the house running errands.
“Above all, in my submission, what a coincidence, that (the accused) kills his mother for reasons that are impossible to comprehend when there was another person whom she had predicted would be responsible if anything ever happened to her,” Lockyer said.
dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
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