Man, 27, convicted of strangling woman in Elmwood home

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This article was published 07/12/2021 (869 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man shot during his bid to commit “suicide by cop” after strangling 48-year-old Karen Letniak to death inside her Elmwood home has been found guilty of second-degree murder.

Cody Saunders, 27, will be sentenced at a later date. The minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 10 years.

The 11-woman, one-man jury deliberated less than four hours before delivering their verdict late Wednesday afternoon.

Saunders admitted he had strangled Letniak, but argued he was in the grip of a cocaine-induced psychosis that removed his intent to kill.

Prosecutors argued Saunders knew what he was doing when he strangled Letniak, just as he did hours later when he pushed responding police officers to shoot him.

Letniak was found dead and naked on the floor in the front entrance of her Riverton Avenue home on Oct. 18, 2019.

An autopsy concluded Letniak had been strangled for at least four minutes, both by hand and with a ligature.

“The strength required to steal someone’s last breath is not small… it speaks of rage,” Crown attorney Renee Lagimodiere said in a closing argument to jurors Wednesday.

After strangling Letniak, Saunders slashed his arm and neck with a knife and stabbed himself in the stomach before placing two calls to 911.

“You can slice your own throat and attempt to end your own life in an instant,” Lagimodiere said. “Strangulation is different. It occurs in minutes. Strangulation is not a momentary lapse – it is a choice, not a fleeting choice, but a continued choice.”

Saunders testified Monday he had been drinking and snorting cocaine at a strip club when he called Letniak, a sex worker, shortly after midnight and arranged to meet at her house for sex.

Saunders said he and Letniak had sex and consumed cocaine on and off during the night. After experiencing both auditory and visual hallucinations, he became angry and found himself strangling Letniak for a matter of seconds.

“I let go of her when she stopped moving,” he testified.

Saunders said his anger wasn’t directed at Letniak, whom he described as “kind.”

Ninety minutes after killing Letniak, Saunders decided to kill himself, he said. When his efforts failed, Saunders called 911, claiming he was involved in a “domestic situation” with his girlfriend.

Winnipeg Police Service Const. Mac Bachelor testified he and his partner, Const. Jonathon Kiazyk, knocked on the doors and windows after arriving at the house shortly before 8 a.m. They received no response. Minutes later, the officers learned another call had been placed to 911 from the same number, with the caller saying: “I need police,” before hanging up.

Bachelor said he tried to open the front door but it was “obstructed.”

Bachelor “push(ed) a little further and there was a female lying on the ground, face down,” he said. “She appeared to be deceased, not breathing and there was blood on the floor. To my recollection, she was not clothed.”

As Kiazyk rounded the back of the house, Bachelor drew his firearm, made his way inside and yelled out for anyone in the house to come forward with their hands up. Bachelor said he had just finished checking a bedroom, where he found the bed mattress stained with blood, when he heard Kiazyk yelling: “Show me your hands.”

Saunders was in the bathroom, “looking over his shoulder at us, his right hand at his neck,” Bachelor said. “He was completely unresponsive… almost like he was staring right through us.”

Bachelor said he holstered his firearm and took out his Taser, at which point, Saunders’ “behaviour changed.”

“He turned and at this point you could see he was holding a large knife in his right hand,” Bachelor said.

Saunders lunged at the officers, the officer testified. Bachelor fired his Taser, hitting Saunders in the chest, and Kiazyk shot him in the shoulder with his handgun.

“I rushed forward toward them,” Saunders testified. “I was hoping to provoke a reaction, discharge their firearms and kill me, because I still couldn’t believe what I had done, the shame, the regret.”

Lagimodiere urged jurors to ignore Saunders’ expressions of regret and remorse.

“His choices made clear what he intended,” she said. “Although he regretted his actions, and tried to kill himself afterwards, that does not absolve him of his wrongdoing. Rather it speaks to his awareness of what he had done.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca