Home invader had previously spoken of urge to hurt and kill others

A sentencing hearing is underway for a mentally disturbed Winnipeg man who forced an unknown family to endure a night of horror and degradation during a random home invasion.

Graphic details of the October 2010 incident on a sleepy North Kildonan street are being revealed publicly for the first time Tuesday. Veteran police and justice officials have described the case as one of the worst they’ve ever seen.

The now 20-year-old man has pleaded guilty to numerous offences including sexual assault, pointing a firearm, aggravated assault, forcible confinement and uttering threats, along with breaching curfew and conditions of a prior case where justice officials raised concerns about his mental health.

Although he was 18 at the time, the Free Press is not identifying the accused in order to publish details about his prior youth involvement with the justice system, which leads to questions about the type of supervision and treatment he was receiving while free in the community and being assessed.

The four victims — a husband, wife and their two teenaged children — suffered extensive physical and emotional trauma. The accused selected them at random after following the daughter home on a Transit bus as part of an extensive plan to rape, torture and possibly kill innocent people in an attempt "to become famous", court was told. In writings later seized by police, he referred to stalking his prey as "The Hunting Game."

"I’ve got a list to take care of before I R.I.P," he wrote.

Police seized hundreds of computer documents which included references to purchasing a torture kit and praise for well-known serial killers. Police also found images of raped and murdered women, downloaded stories about incest and personally written tales of targeting people known to the accused.

"This is an intelligent, articulate but extremely disturbed individual. He planned his final act for a very long time," Crown attorney Kusham Sharma told court Tuesday.

The man had disclosed many of his disturbing homicidal fantasies to his parents and a team of psychiatrists and psychologists who were working with him in the months preceding the incident. He told doctors about an "overwhelming urge" to hurt others, claimed he was hearing voices, cited Stalin, Hitler and Lucifer as his personal "advisers" and even spoke of wanting to kill "a thousand people."

But attempts at medicating and even hospitalizing the teen failed, with his most recent discharge coming from the Health Sciences Centre less than three weeks before he preyed upon the unsuspecting family.

The incident began about 10:30 p.m. on a Monday evening when the young son answered a knock at the door — and was greeted with a gun being held in his face. The invader pushed his way inside, where he saw the boy’s older sister sitting watching television.

He demanded to know if anyone else was home, then forced the kids upstairs when informed their parents were asleep in the bedroom. With the entire family now awake, the man allegedly forced the mother to duct tape her husband and two children while pointing the weapon at all of them.

The invader then pushed the father down a flight of stairs, which caused his tape to come loose. He brought him back to the top of the stairs, re-taped him and then shoved him a second time. The father’s head struck a wall, creating a hole in it.

The invader then ordered all four family members to go downstairs, saying he’d have to kill them because they’d seen his face.

The invader then forced the mother and son to get undressed and perform various sex acts while the daughter and father looked on. The father was still being restrained with duct tape and had a knife being held to his throat, the gun still to his head, at the time.

The invader then began stabbing the father several times in the stomach. That’s when the son was able to grab a metal pipe and begin hitting the invader over the head. He was quickly joined by his father who broke out of the duct tape. The mother and daughter ran upstairs and out the front door, screaming for help from neighbours.

Police were called just after midnight — about 90 minutes after the attack began — and arrived quickly. They arrested the invader, who suffered extensive injuries. Police also seized the firearm, which turned out to be a pellet gun but looked like the real thing. The family was also taken for treatment, with the father being the most seriously injured.

The man made a series of bizarre comments to police following his arrest, which included claiming he had stopped taking anti-psychotic medications and was acting on orders from Satan and Hitler to attack the innocent family.

The man was out on bail at the time following an arrest in April 2010 which raised concerns about his mental health. The man, who was just 17 at the time, was caught by police walking through the Exchange District carrying a knife and an energy drink. He was wearing a red bandana, tuque and sunglasses -- despite it being just past midnight. Police charged the accused with carrying a concealed weapon and expressed concerns about his mental state in their formal report, advising that he should be seen by a doctor prior to being released.

The man has now admitted he was actually scouting for victims in advance, just as he did in September 2010 when he followed a young woman home from a life skills class he was taking. He had written extensively in a diary about wanting to murder her, but changed his mind upon discovering she lived in an apartment and not a home.

"He followed a number of victims until he found the perfect one. We don’t even know how many there were," Sharma said Tuesday.

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