Free less than year after killing stepmother in 2000, man back in jail facing harassment, threat charges

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This article was published 12/01/2024 (958 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A notorious Manitoba killer with mental-health disorders who was found not criminally responsible for the 2000 slaying of his stepmother is back in custody on charges of harassment, indecent phone calls and other offences.

Earl Joel “Joey” Wiebe, 42, was charged this week with criminal harassment, indecent phone calls, harassing phone calls, uttering threats, publishing intimate images without consent and five counts of disobeying court orders, court records show.

He’s accused of committing the alleged crimes between May 2020 and July 2023. The new charges were laid after Wiebe was accused of repeatedly harassing a married couple, a justice source told the Free Press.

Wiebe was 17 years old on May 2, 2000 when he choked his stepmother, 40-year-old Candis Moizer, before retrieving a knife to slash her throat in their home in Niverville. He set fire to the home before leaving and later confessed to a police officer.

He was charged with second-degree murder, but his trial was in adult court, where he was found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder. Mental-health professionals testified during the trial that he has post-traumatic-stress disorder and borderline personality disorder, though there has been disagreement over the years about his illnesses — and efforts to effectively treat him.

Wiebe came under the jurisdiction of the Manitoba Criminal Code Review Board in 2001 and was detained in the Selkirk Mental Health Centre, but was transferred between the hospital, various provincial jails and Stony Mountain federal prison multiple times over the course of more than 20 years, as a result of offences he committed in the hospital and elsewhere.

Wiebe, who was released from the medium-security mental-health hospital in Selkirk last spring, was arrested this week at a residence in Winnipeg, the Free Press has learned.

Wiebe was most recently convicted of mischief to property over $5,000 in August 2020. A judge sentenced him to two years in custody after he pleaded guilty.

In 2018, he was convicted of uttering threats and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose. He pleaded guilty in front of a provincial court judge who sentenced him to 30 months of custody.

Wiebe was convicted of two counts of assault, one count of mischief to property over $5,000, uttering threats and mischief endangering life in 2012, for a series of crimes at the Selkirk hospital, including assaults on staff. He was sentenced to serve five years in Stony Mountain prison.

In 2009, Wiebe hid a knife, drugs, alcohol and cash in the ceiling tiles of his room at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre.

He lit his pants on fire in another incident that year, causing all the doors in the facility to automatically open. Wiebe was accused of having a key that allowed him access to several rooms.

He was romantically involved with a psychiatric nursing student who was hired in early 2009 and assigned to be his escort during several off-site day trips. Love letters from the woman, who was later fired, were found in his room.

In 2006, he escaped escorts from the Selkirk hospital, but was later returned without charge.

Wiebe was set to appear briefly in a Winnipeg courtroom on the new charges Friday.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca