Judge cites intoxication, brain injury in manslaughter conviction

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This article was published 12/07/2022 (1212 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Pukatawagan man who admitted beating a 22-year-old woman to death with a rock has been found not guilty of second-degree murder after a judge ruled he was so impaired by alcohol he could not form the intent to kill.

In a decision released last month, Queen’s Bench Justice James Edmond convicted 24-year-old August Thunder Caribou of the lesser offence of manslaughter in the June 24, 2020, killing of Treena Castel.

“I am not satisfied that the Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was able to form the specific intent to kill Ms. Castel,” Edmond said.

Caribou killed Castel the same day he graduated high school and four days after finishing his last shift working as a guard at the Pukatawagan RCMP detachment.

Police arrested Caribou several hours after the killing after his parents reported he was highly intoxicated and threatening suicide. In an interview with police, Caribou said he and Castel had been walking through a wooded area on their way to get cigarettes when he pushed her to the ground, picked up a large rock and hit her 10 times in the head. Caribou then removed Castel’s clothing and sexually assaulted her.

Caribou, who court heard suffered a traumatic brain injury as a child and had a history of substance abuse, including solvents, dating to the time he was 15, told investigators he had been deprived of his medication for “multiple personalities” following a recent stay in hospital.

Caribou said it was “one of (my) personalities… the one I locked up” who killed Castel.

“He took over and then I came back,” Caribou told police before pleading to be placed in a mental institution.

Several children witnessed Caribou’s attack on Castel and told police he appeared drunk, had been “acting strange” and they saw him falling down.

A psychiatrist testified the impact of Caribou’s intoxication was intensified by his brain injury, solvent abuse and “childhood adversity.”

His ability to “comprehend the situation and make decisions would be severely impaired in that situation,” Dr. Jeffrey Waldman testified at trial.

While there is no legal requirement to show a motive for the killing, aside from an incident three years earlier when Castel allegedly punched Caribou in the face, “there appears to be no reasonable explanation” for the fatal attack, Edmond said.

“His actions are completely out of proportion with the prior incident and lend support to the position advanced by the accused that the killing occurred when the accused was suffering from an advanced state of intoxication, substance abuse disorder and mental health issues as described by Dr. Waldman,” Edmond said. “In my view, the accused’s statement reads more like a cry for help for his mental health problems than a confession about deliberately intending to kill Ms. Castel.”

Caribou will be sentenced for manslaughter at a later date.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca