Teen should get adult sentence for role in 'sadistic' 2022 Point Douglas killings: prosecutor

Ozten Shebahkeget · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 08, 2025 6:21 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

WARNING: This communicative contains graphic details.

A justice is weighing whether a younker condemnation is due for a present 18-year-old who went on what prosecutors telephone a "sadistic" sidesplitting spree successful 2022 that took 3 lives successful nether an hr successful Winnipeg's Point Douglas neighbourhood.

The aboriginal greeting attacks connected Aug. 22, 2022, near Danielle Dawn Ballantyne, a 36-year-old woman, dead. Marvin William Felix, a 54-year-old amputee who utilized a wheelchair, and Troy Baguley, 51, were critically injured successful attacks the aforesaid greeting and aboriginal died successful hospital.

Two teens, some 15 astatine the clip of the killings, pleaded blameworthy to manslaughter and 2 counts of second-degree murder. They cannot beryllium named owed to provisions nether the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Prosecutors person recommended some teens person big sentences, which would mean automatic beingness sentences connected the second-degree execution charges.

The maximum younker condemnation for second-degree execution is 7 years — up to 4 years successful custody, with up to different 3 years of probation.

In hearings that began Monday, Manitoba Court of King's Bench Justice Gerald Chartier is hearing arguments connected whether 1 of the teens, present 18, should beryllium sentenced arsenic an adult.

Prosecutor Jodi Koffman told the tribunal that the Crown indispensable beryllium the teen was morally liable for the killings, and that a seven-year younker condemnation is not capable to clasp him accountable oregon to support society.

Koffman said the teen took portion successful a "killing spree" that targeted susceptible radical without remorse, attacking them successful a "sadistic" mode that progressive removing their pants and stomping connected their genitals and heads aggregate times, earlier leaving them "exposed and incapacitated."

"These murders were purposeful, intended and desired," Koffman said Tuesday.

The teen has an "unbroken transgression history" some successful and retired of custody, she said, that began earlier helium turned 12 years aged and continued to soon earlier his 18th birthday. That past includes aggregate assaults, radical assaults, weapons-related offences, uttering threats, and spitting connected and punching correctional officers, the authoritative said.

"One would anticipation that aft being charged with 3 deaths, and claiming to consciousness atrocious astir it, [he] would halt hurting others violently, and yet this hasn't been the case," said Koffman.

Surveillance footage shows attacks

The teen and his co-accused were reported missing from a Wolseley-area radical location the evening earlier the 2022 attacks, tribunal heard. The teen aboriginal admitted that they stole intoxicant from a brew vendor and visited cause houses in the hours earlier the fatal beatings, said Koffman.

Surveillance footage played successful tribunal Monday showed the opening of the attacks astatine 4:19 a.m., erstwhile the teen and his co-accused bushed Baguley for astir 8 minutes earlier they dragged his assemblage to a Main Street parking lot, betwixt Jarvis and Sutherland avenues.

The beating near Baguley with traumatic encephalon wounded and a full nonaccomplishment of cognitive capacity, tribunal has antecedently heard. He was removed from beingness enactment successful March 2023.

Police recovered Ballantyne lying connected the 2nd level of a Jarvis Avenue flat gathering adjacent Main Street astir 7 a.m. connected the time of the attacks.

The parent of 4 from Misipawistik Cree Nation sustained injuries to the near broadside of her head. Broken glass, a backpack and a purse were scattered adjacent to her assemblage adjacent a excavation of blood, according to an agreed connection of facts.

Surveillance video aboriginal caught the teens arsenic they walked together, with their arms wrapped astir each other, little than fractional an hr aft the attacks connected Baguley and Ballantyne. The two stumbled upon their last victim: Felix, who was dormant successful his wheelchair adjacent the Bell Hotel connected Main Street.

The video shows the teen and his co-accused punch and resistance Felix to the ground, earlier the teen removed Felix's pants and the 2 stomped connected his caput and genitals aggregate times. 

Felix, who was from the bluish assemblage of Berens River, was taken to infirmary successful unstable information and died connected Aug. 26, 2022, from blunt unit wounded to his head, which fractured his skull, near feature and jaw.

The teen's co-accused was later seen wearing Felix's pants arsenic they walked down Main Street pursuing the assault. The video besides shows the teen assaulting radical astatine random successful beforehand of the Main Street Project shelter, including different antheral successful a wheelchair, earlier fleeing.

Teen diagnosed with ADHD, FASD

On Monday, Sara Spevack — a objective scientist who assessed the 18-year-old doubly successful 2024 — told the tribunal that helium was diagnosed with attraction shortage hyperactivity disorder, fetal intoxicant spectrum disorder and mild intelligence disability.

He was besides recovered to person an IQ of 72, Spevack said. The threshold for intelligence disablement is typically 70, she said.

But Koffman argued that adjacent with the FASD diagnosis, the teen does not endure immoderate terrible cognitive defects, saying he was "calculated" and understood that his "extreme, prolonged and gratuitous" killings were morally wrong.

"An big condemnation is the lone mode for america to show him semipermanent and to beryllium capable to authorisation him if helium becomes a information to nationalist information again," she said.

The proceeding is scheduled until Thursday.