An Interlake-area teen who admitted luring a Winnipeg man to his death at Assiniboine Park has been sentenced as an adult to life in prison with no chance of parole for seven years.
The now 19-year-old man and an 18-year-old female co-accused pleaded guilty last summer to second-degree murder in the February 2022 killing of Paul Enns.
Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, youths are considered to be of “diminished moral blameworthiness,” compared to adults. To persuade a court to impose an adult sentence, prosecutors must successfully “rebut” that presumption and satisfy a judge that a youth sentence isn’t long enough to hold an offender accountable. The maximum youth sentence for second-degree murder is seven years custody and conditional supervision.
MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS FILES
Paul Enns’ body was discovered in a car in this parking lot off Conservatory Drive in Assiniboine Park, at about 3 a.m.
Enns, 43, was found dead in the back seat of his BMW in a parking lot near Conservatory Drive in Assiniboine Park at 3 a.m. on Feb. 26. He had been stabbed with a screwdriver, beaten in the head and body with a bat and robbed of his wallet and car keys.
Enns was lured to the location under the pretext of a sexual encounter after the teens contacted him on social media.
The circumstances of the killing “establish that (the male teen) had the moral capacity of an adult,” King’s Bench Justice Vic Toews said in a ruling delivered Wednesday.
“In this respect, it is important to note not only the exceptionally prolonged nature of the assault itself, but that (the male teen) was … the leader of the two accused.
“Together with his co-accused, he planned the robbery, and he had the foresight to arm himself. He made a conscious decision to assault the victim and he carried out that plan with brutal efficiency.”
The male teen appeared unmoved by the ruling, yawning and stretching his arms at the hearing’s end, then turning to check his hair in a window behind the prisoner’s box.
According to an agreed statement of facts Toews read out in court, a mutual acquaintance of Enns and the male accused said he witnessed a “physically hostile encounter” between the two men sometime before the killing.
The then-15-year-old female offender exchanged more than 100 text messages with Enns in the hours prior to the attack and arranged to meet at the park around midnight. The girl joined Enns in his car and stabbed him with a sharpened screwdriver two times in the leg and once in the neck before the male offender joined the attack and beat Enns to death with his fists and a baseball bat.
Members of Enns’s family seated in the court gallery sobbed as Toews detailed his many injuries, including multiple skull fractures, broken eye sockets, jawbone and teeth.
Two hours after the killing, the two teens met with a friend outside a Stonewall service station and “bragged about beating up the deceased,” showing the friend where Enns had scratched them.
Another acquaintance told police the teens made a similar disclosure a short time later.
“They were laughing and smiling a lot and said they weren’t going to get caught because they did it smart,” the acquaintance said. The teens told the acquaintance they beat Enns “and watched him beg for his life.”
A day prior to the killing, the male teen tried to enlist a friend’s help “jumping a pedo,” and offered to pay him $300. The friend declined.
Paul Enns had been stabbed with a screwdriver, beaten with a bat and robbed of his wallet and car keys.
The day after the killing, the teens used Enns’s credit card at Polo Park mall in Winnipeg to buy popcorn and a pair of runners for the girl. The girl was wearing the runners when police arrested her at her Stonewall home March 1, 2022.
Police arrested the male teen three days later at a Winnipeg hospital where he was being treated for an unrelated illness.
Prosecutors initially intended to recommend an adult sentence for the female offender, but changed their position following the completion of court-ordered reports examining her background and rehabilitative prospects.
Crown attorney Jodi Koffman and defence lawyers Mike Cook and Emilie Cook jointly recommended the woman receive a maximum youth sentence of seven years custody and conditional supervision in the community, to be served under an Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision order. Under the program, offenders are provided access to one-on-one counselling, occupational therapy, tutoring and other specialized services at a cost of $100,000 a year.
Crown and defence lawyers recommended the four-year custodial portion of the teen’s sentence be split into two years of closed custody and two years of open custody, where she would be eligible for temporary releases to the community.
Toews agreed to the substance of the joint recommendation, but ordered the teen serve four years in closed custody. The judge said she will be required to appear before him for annual reviews, at which time he can change her custody conditions if she has made progress in her rehabilitation.
“It is clear from the evidence that she was an active participant who apparently had no regret about her participation in the murder until her apprehension,” Toews said. “Should the evidence of the annual reviews of her sentence justify a less stringent form of custody, the court is able to adjust the sentence at that time.”
Court heard at a sentencing hearing last summer that the woman has been sexually exploited by older males in the past and has a history of self-harm and suicide attempts.
According to a pre-sentence report, the woman described the male co-accused — her then-boyfriend — as a manipulator who preyed on her vulnerability as a sex assault victim to convince her to become involved in the attack, falsely claiming Enns was a pedophile.
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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