Pair sentenced for stabbing death of former Manitoba KKK leader

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This article was published 05/11/2018 (2875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Methamphetamine was the motivation for two Winnipeg men who showed up at a West Broadway apartment with an arsenal of weapons and killed a man they would later learn was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Joshua Evans, 26, and Martin Archie Flett, 25, were sentenced Monday for their roles in the death of 45-year-old Bill Harcus, a.k.a. James Edsel Tucker.

Evans, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for stabbing Tucker in the chest, has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. Flett pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, and received a 12-year sentence Tuesday.

The pair were looking for someone selling meth inside an apartment building at 485 Furby Street, but there was no evidence Tucker was a drug dealer, Crown prosecutors said. He was the former head of the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan in Manitoba and had legally changed his name after he was charged with hate crimes in the early 1990s.

On June 23, 2016, after beating Tucker’s roommate for more than two hours and forcing him to take them to the suite he shared with Tucker, Evans and Flett, armed with a loaded handgun, a sawed off shotgun, a 60-centimetre sword and brass knuckles, held Tucker at gunpoint.

He resisted, and Evans stabbed him. A hook at the end of the 40-cm blade pierced his body, and neither Evans nor the paramedics who arrived later could remove the sword.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Richard Saull, who prosecuted the case against Tucker as a Crown attorney, imposed the sentences Monday, after Crown and defence lawyers reached a plea bargain. If not for the weaknesses in the Crown’s case, Saull said he would have expected to impose tougher sentences for violence he described as “vicious and cowardly.”

If Evans and Flett hadn’t pleaded guilty Oct. 22, the Crown would have had three civilian witnesses to testify — two of whom were friends with Evans and weren’t expected to be co-operative with the prosecution. The third witness, Tucker’s roommate, battled a meth addiction combined with schizophrenia and has been hospitalized since early October due to psychosis.

Without those witnesses, the Crown’s case would have had to rely on police statements. Flett and Evans each told police they were merely bystanders when the stabbing happened. One of Evans’ friends, who spoke to him shortly after the stabbing, told police he seemed remorseful right away, saying, “I took a life.”

Both men were addicted to meth. Evans’ defence lawyer, Mike Cook, said his client described seeing malevolent “shadow people” and being constantly paranoid because of auditory and visual hallucinations.

Evans apologized in court “for the horrible things I did,” and said he’s taking steps toward a better future. His mother, Diana Genaille, wrote a letter filed in court in which she said her son got involved in gangs when he was 15 or 16.

“Even though Josh was uncontrollable and was dabbling in gangs, he was still a soft-hearted young man who cared very deeply for his family. I’m not sure how else to explain him, but there was not a lot that Josh wouldn’t do for his siblings,” she wrote. “I know for a fact that I was needed at a time in his life (when) I wasn’t available, and I will never forgive myself for that.”

Flett declined to speak in court, but defence lawyer Ryan McElhoes said Flett and his whole family have been affected by meth abuse. One of his brothers is awaiting trial in another homicide case, and one of his sisters is currently missing.

“It’s really a family that’s been ravaged by methamphetamine use,” McElhoes said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay