Pregnant woman fatally shot
A pregnant woman was shot to death around 2:40 a.m. Wednesday through the front door of a battered, one-and-a-half-storey Magnus Avenue home that neighbours said had been previously linked to drugs and prostitution.
Joanne Nadine Hoeppner's adoptive parents in Morden were distraught Wednesday night, saying they had been contacted by her biological brother, who their family also adopted, telling them she was dead.
Joanne Hoeppner on Boxing Day.
The adoptive parents described Hoeppner as a petite aboriginal girl with shoulder-length brown hair and dark brown eyes.
The husband and wife were anxiously awaiting a call from the Winnipeg Police Service to confirm the news.
"We just had such a lovely Christmas with her," said the woman, in tears.
According to the Winnipeg Police Service public information office, which did not identify the woman, the attacker or attackers who killed her at 688 Magnus remained at large Wednesday.
Yellow police tape surrounded the small green house Wednesday, and Magnus Avenue between McKenzie and Parr streets remained closed while a police identification unit examined the shooting scene.
Police investigate scene in front of 688 Magnus yesterday. Gunfire through the front door killed a woman inside.
Small lettered markers were set up on the street in front of the house. A bullet hole pierced a window near the front door.
"It's terrible," a Magnus Avenue neighbour said. "She was so proud to be pregnant. She'd show off her belly." Hoeppner was eight months along.
Neighbours said Hoeppner was talkative and had lived at the house for what they estimated was six or seven months. An older woman, Therese-Marie Fontaine, owned the home and also lived there. She is also is known as Teresa, according to court documents.
"These guys come and go from there all the time," said a neighbour, who did not want her name used.
Police said Wednesday morning two women and a male friend were in the house at the time of the shooting.
Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Const. Jacqueline Chaput did not clarify the number of shots fired at the house, but did say the shooting was not a domestic matter.
Neighbours reported hearing a long string of loud pops.
Hoeppner was struck in the upper body, police said, with the shooter or shooters believed to be standing outside the front door and firing inside.
"The shots were fired through the door," Chaput said.
She said that due to privacy laws, she could not confirm if the woman killed in the shooting was pregnant. Police said it was unclear if she was the intended target of the attack.
A neighbour said when Fontaine first lived in the home, the front entrance was rarely used, but neighbours had noticed a large increase in traffic to and from the house in the last year.
Other neighbours said the home was known as a destination for buyers of crack cocaine.
"The residence is known to police," Chaput said. "We haven't been there that often as of late... whether it's with these persons residing there or not, I don't know; they may be new tenants."
There was a large Beware of Dog sign hanging outside the front porch Wednesday, and a piece of abandoned lawn furniture sat in a heap of snow on the east side of the yard.
Fontaine owns dogs, including one Rottweiler cross.
In the months before the shooting, neighbours said the home had regular vehicle traffic from men of all ages who swaggered in from fancy cars that parked in front. A neighbour said two to three days before the shooting, people kicked in the front door.
Hoeppner was charged and convicted in January 2003 on an alcohol-related offence, and in June 2006 of communicating for the purposes of prostitution, a charge to which she plead guilty.
She got a suspended sentence and supervised probation for the prostitution-related offence. She also had court dates for a series of probation offences.
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Born in July 1979, she was divorced from her husband. He sought and gained a protection order against her in March 2007, according to court documents.
The court records state Hoeppner had two children who are in the care of her ex-husband. She was required to abstain from alcohol and intoxicants for 24 hours before she saw them and during their visits.
Fontaine owns the Magnus Avenue address, according to the provincial property registry.
She purchased it in 2005 from the North End Housing Project, but the non-profit organization said Wednesday they no longer had a relationship with her after the sale.
"Once we sell the house, it becomes private ownership," said Lawrence Deane, board secretary for the North End Housing Project.
Hoeppner was transported to the Health Sciences Centre emergency room, but Wednesday night a hospital spokeswoman said the facility did not have a patient with that name.
Anyone with information is asked to contact investigators at 986-6508 or CrimeStoppers at 786-TIPS (8477).
gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca
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