Homicide detectives believe a 30-year-old woman, who was initially reported as a missing person, was killed shortly after she was last seen near Polo Park mall last October, court records reveal.
The Winnipeg Police Service announced Monday that Shelby Dawn Hayward, 30, had been slain and that suspects had been identified in her death, but police would make few other details public while one of the suspects remains at large.
Homicide investigators believe Hayward was killed on or between Oct. 20 and Oct. 30, 2023, court records show.
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Shelby Dawn Hayward, 30, was reported missing to the Winnipeg Police Service in November 2023. Her death is now being investigated as a homicide.
Hayward was last seen in the area of Polo Park on Oct. 20 and was reported missing on Nov. 17.
Missing persons investigators put out a plea to the public in early January, asking for information on Hayward’s disappearance. Those investigators handled the case until homicide detectives took over, after they confirmed Hayward was dead earlier this year.
Those accused in her slaying are to be charged with first-degree murder, indicating police and prosecutors believe her death to have been planned and deliberate.
Detectives have identified four suspects in the death — one of whom has since died — and arrested two of them over the past two weeks: Vincent Charles Fontaine, 39, who was incarcerated at Headingley jail on unrelated matters and Tamara Gayle Moneas, 24, who was at a home on Toronto Street.
The third living accused, Taylor Lena Ray Moose, 25, is still on the loose, police said Monday, and should be considered potentially dangerous.
Fontaine is the only suspect with any adult criminal convictions, records show.
He is a registered sex offender, a designation put in place after he pleaded guilty to the sexual assault of a teen, beginning when she was 15, between November 2009 and March 2010. He’s also had two court order breaches.
At his sentencing hearing in Powerview-Pine Falls provincial circuit court in August 2013, court heard Fontaine had begun a “consensual” sexual relationship with the teenager after they met at a home in Winnipeg.
The teen’s mother reported the relationship to police in early 2010, after the girl, who had been away with Fontaine and refused to come home, eventually showed up pregnant.
By the time he was sentenced to time served of eight months in 2013, Fontaine and the teenager had had a second child together. He had breached orders barring him from contacting the girl numerous times.
Fontaine was also given two years of supervised probation and ordered to register as a sex offender for 20 years.
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An arrest warrant on a charge of first-degree murder has been issued for 25-year-old Taylor Lena Ray Moose.
His record includes more than a dozen additional convictions for breaching court orders, a common assault, mischief and drug possession.
He remains before the court on two counts of failing to comply with his sex offender registration requirements in January and February, for which he’s being held in Headingley jail.
Fontaine is due in court on the murder charge Oct. 25.
Though Moneyas and Moose have no convictions on their records, both are pending on a handful of seemingly unrelated charges on top of first-degree murder.
Moneyas is accused of possessing drugs for the purpose of trafficking, possessing property obtained by crime under $5,000 resulting from drug sales and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, all on Sept. 24, the day before she was arrested for murder.
She’s due in court on the murder charge on Oct. 18.
Moose is pending on a theft charge from August 2022, and subsequently allegedly failing to show up for court or identification proceedings four times.
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.
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