Last March, Anissa Christy Pompana and her lawyer told a judge in Brandon that she wanted to change her life, and talked about a tentative plan to attend a treatment program in Winnipeg for her relapsed methamphetamine addiction.
“I’m gonna do good in treatment now… and I don’t want to come back to Brandon, I’m going to try to go to treatment in Winnipeg,” Pompana told provincial court Associate Chief Judge Donovan Dvorak after pleading guilty to theft under $5,000, fraudulent use of a credit card and a slew of court order breaches.
Her lawyer, Denby McLean, told the judge Pompana’s son had died in a house fire at her mother’s home in Sioux Valley Dakota Nation in 2023.
“A grief spiral fuelled by a meth addiction” led Pompana back to drug use and criminal behaviour, much of which she couldn’t recall, said McLean.
She was sentenced to time served and two years of unsupervised probation.
“Sometimes, a change of environment or a change of location, it gives a change of perspective a little bit, and maybe it’s not a bad idea to be in another community if that’s going to give you a different start,” said Dvorak, after offering her condolences for the loss of her son.
On Dec. 27, in a back lane behind Maginot Arena, near De Bourmont Avenue and Dugas Street in Windsor Park, the 33-year-old woman fatally assaulted a man she had just met while socializing with mutual acquaintances elsewhere hours earlier, Winnipeg Police Service homicide detectives allege.
Byron Frederick Moose, 50 of O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation, died in hospital after he was found badly injured in the lane at about 4:30 a.m.
Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service personnel had been called for a medical event, but soon determined Moose had been assaulted and they called for police.
WPS spokeswoman Const. Dani McKinnon said Tuesday that Moose and Pompana had met while socializing at another location — she was not sure where — before walking out together prior to the assault.
His death marked the final homicide in Winnipeg in 2024. A pair of latex gloves and bandage packaging missed in the cleanup after paramedics left the scene were left in the lane between the arena and homes on Dugas Street the day after Moose died.
Pompana, who is also from Sioux Valley Dakota Nation and has a Grade 10 education, has a record of mischief, theft, assaults and court order breaches.
At the time of her sentencing in March 2024, Pompana was “effectively homeless,” said McLean, and some of the breaches were tied to her going places where she had been previously ordered not to be to seek shelter.
“We’re basically just waiting for her to get into a facility” to treat her meth problem, said McLean.
At the time of her son’s death in a fire, McLean told court, Pompana was in treatment in Winnipeg, and her mother looked after her three kids. The lawyer noted that Pompana’s grandmother had attended residential school, while her father had fallen victim to a homicide when she was seven years old.
erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca
Erik Pindera
Reporter
Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Erik.
Every piece of reporting Erik produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.