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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Life sentence for slaying based on legal history

By: Mike McIntyre

Posted: 05/2/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

A 65-year-old Winnipeg man has been given a rare life sentence for manslaughter, based largely on an extensive legal history that includes being convicted of another prior killing and accused of a third.

Gordon Norman Ross pleaded guilty Tuesday to the September 2008 death of John Watkins inside a Sherbrook Street rooming house. The 45-year-old victim suffered several stab wounds, including one directly to the heart.

Ross was initially charged with second-degree murder but the Crown agreed to a reduced charge, based primarily on his severe intoxication at the time, which left him unable to form the necessary intent to kill, court heard.

Crown and defence lawyers submitted a joint recommendation for Ross to be given the maximum sentence allowed by law -- a life penalty. Ross will be eligible to apply for parole after serving seven years, but there is no guarantee he will ever be released.

Parole officials will likely consider his troubled background, which includes a 1980 conviction for manslaughter for which he was sentenced to nine years behind bars.

"Given that he has now taken two lives, a life sentence is appropriate," Crown attorney Sheila Leinburd told court Tuesday.

While on parole for his first homicide, Ross was charged in 1986 with killing Winnipeg cab driver Gurnam Singh Dhaliwal. However, he was cleared at trial two years later after the Crown's key witness admitted she lied when she put Ross and a co-accused at the scene of the crime. It was also learned police had found another suspect's fingerprints at the crime scene.

In 1990, another man, Christopher Glenn Grywinski, was convicted of second-degree murder in Dhaliwhal's slaying. He committed suicide later in the Winnipeg Remand Centre.

Ross made headlines again in 2006, this time as a victim. Daniel Vaillant and Lavina Bradburn died in December 2006 after their Elgin Avenue rooming house was torched. Four other residents -- including Ross -- suffered injuries and went to hospital. A former tenant later pleaded guilty to the pair of deaths and was given a life sentence.

Defence lawyer Danny Gunn told court Ross has suffered a hellish life, which includes years spent in the residential school system. There are also ongoing addictions to alcohol and drugs his client has used as coping mechanisms, he said.

"We've failed Mr. Ross. I'm not sure what chance he had growing up as he did," said Gunn.

Ross submitted a written statement to the court, apologizing for killing Watkins but claiming he has absolutely no memory of the incident because he blacked out from a drinking binge. Leinburd said residents of the rooming house saw Ross stumbling down the hallway with a half-empty bottle of mouthwash, threatening to kill anybody who asked him for a cigarette. He then got into a violent scuffle with Watkins moments later.

"I often wonder what my life would have been if I didn't go to residential school. I know one thing -- it couldn't have been any worse," Ross said in his statement.

www.mikeoncrime.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 2, 2012 A7

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