$400 drug debt sparked accidental slaying, court told

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This article was published 13/12/2018 (1960 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg woman shot in the head after she was caught in the middle of someone else’s drug dispute was still alive when her killer returned to her house and set it on fire, court heard Friday.

Malcolm Miles Mitchell, 26, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years in the March 2017 killing of 29-year-old Jeanenne Fontaine. He had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Fontaine was a cousin of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, whose 2014 killing sparked calls for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.

“The tragic effect of homicide on young Indigenous women ripples greatly on… that family,” Crown attorney Mike Desautels told Justice Sheldon Lanchberry.

According to an agreed statement of facts read out in court, Mitchell wanted to collect a $400 drug debt “or the equivalent in property” owed to him by a man he believed was staying at Fontaine’s Aberdeen Avenue home. Mitchell, accompanied by two co-accused, Jason Michael Meilleur, 39, and Christopher Matthew Brass, 36, went to the house where they were met at the door by a different man.

The three accused searched the house for the target of the drug debt, but did not find him. While still searching the house, Mitchell took a .22-calibre handgun from Brass and used it to scare away someone who was knocking on the backdoor. Still in possession of the gun, Mitchell found Fontaine, who he knew as the mother of his cousin’s child, in her bedroom. Mitchell cocked the gun and pointed it at the back of Fontaine as he ripped a necklace from her neck.

“He pulled (the necklace) and the gun discharged,” Desautels said, reading from the agreed statement of facts.

Mitchell fled the house and returned with a portable torch.

“When Mitchell returned, he found that while Fontaine was not breathing, she was still apparently alive,” Desautels said.

Mitchell set a fire on top of the kitchen stove and used the torch to set a second fire on a living room couch before fleeing the house a second time.

Emergency responders rescued Fontaine from the fire, but she later died in hospital.

“The cause of death was determined to be burn trauma, secondary to a lethal gunshot wound to the head,” Desautels said.

At the time of the killing, Mitchell was deep into methamphetamine, using up to a gram (10 hits) a day, said his lawyer Scott Newman. When arrested two months later, he took immediate responsibility for the killing.

“He was essentially crying and gave a full confession,” Newman said.

Brass and Meilleur have yet to be tried for Fontaine’s killing.

Mitchell and Brass are co-accuseds in a second killing in Regina in 2017. Brass believed the victim, 51-year-old Daniel DiPaolo had played a role in his mother’s suicide seven years earlier and enlisted the aid of Mitchell and two others to confront him.

After gaining entry to his home, Brass stabbed Dipaolo in the face, and with the aid of a co-accused, strangled him with an electrical cord. After looting the house, Brass saw that Dipaolo was still alive and shot him in the head.

Brass pleaded guilty in September to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Under a plea agreement, Mitchell is expected to plead guilty to second-degree murder at a later date and be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 14 years. The sentence would be consecutive to the one imposed Friday, meaning Mitchell would not be eligible for parole for 24 years.

In a separate courtroom Friday, Brass was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years in the February 2017 killing of Bryer Prysiazniuk-Settee. As in Mitchell’s case, Brass’ period of parole ineligibility is to run consecutive to his earlier murder conviction, meaning he wont be able to apply for parole for 40 years.

Jurors heard at trial that Prysiazniuk-Settee had gone to a Powers Street apartment to buy meth when, during a confrontation, Brass shot him six times in the chest.