Gift hoarding raises questions

BRANDON — A Brandon man has been found guilty of killing his 71-year-old mother with a hatchet in the fall of 2023 after his lawyers argued he should be held not criminally responsible.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Elliot Leven found 47-year-old Gabriel Heymans guilty of second-degree murder on Monday.

Heymans, who listened to the hearing by phone from the Brandon Regional Health Centre, will be sentenced at a later date.

During the April trial, court heard Heymans lived with his mother, Maureen Heymans, for seven years in a two-bedroom apartment in Brandon and hadn’t spoken to her for more than a year before her death.

Winnipeg, the capital of ‘Friendly Manitoba’, is becoming far less friendly to anyone who is struggling to survive. The city is also less and less supportive of the not-for-profit sector which struggles to support those struggling to survive.

Municipal politicians have long insisted that social services are provincial responsibilities. However, the city charter makes it clear that mayor and council are “to promote and maintain the health, safety and welfare of the inhabitants.”

Mayor and council are empowered to decide how they do that. Every four years, we citizens get to vote on what we think and feel about those decisions. That’s our democracy, weighted against the disenfranchised though it is.

In 2022, only 37.17 per cent of eligible voters, the lowest percentage since 1989, voted. Recent Probe Research data demonstrates that only one-third of Winnipeggers believe the next mayor and council will make even a minor difference in addressing Winnipeg’s challenges, and another third believe they will make no difference at all.

A father and son arrested last month are accused of travelling across Canada — and using courier services and Canada Post — to supply their Winnipeg drug-trafficking operation, a recent court filing shows.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: What does it mean when a person hoards their presents and doesn’t even wear them or display them, just keeps them in drawers, all wrapped up except for an opening at one end? This holiday when my the cousins were here, we cleaned out our old aunt’s house (she died) and she had every gift given to her for years and years in a bunch of dressers.

The gifts looked totally perfect, and weren’t very dusty, like she cleaned them. The rest of her house is not cluttered, but she has several dressers in one room chock full of gifts. I just don’t get it. What’s with the gifts, when she hoarded nothing else? It’s bugging my mind at night. Can you please explain this?

— Faithful Reader, North End