Killer’s ‘sheer hatred’ led to murder

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This article was published 18/01/2024 (653 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man who murdered a woman pregnant with his child took the stand for the first time Wednesday, revealing to a jury hearing his early parole application bid distressing details of the killing and why he planned it.

Nathaniel Plourde was 19 when he killed 24-year-old Roxanne Fernando on Feb. 15, 2007, beating her with a wrench after he agreed to go on a Valentine’s Day date as a ruse.

He and two accomplices abandoned her, still breathing but badly injured, in a snow-filled ditch on the city’s edge, where her frozen body was found days later.

Plourde pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2009, and was sentenced to life in prison with no ability to apply for parole for 25 years — meaning he never testified in front of a judge or jury until this week.

The jury of seven women and five men, overseen by Court of King’s Bench Justice Ken Champagne, is hearing the 36-year-old Plourde’s “faint-hope” application.

The application is under a provision of the Criminal Code that allows certain offenders sentenced to life without parole for 15 years or more to apply for early parole after serving 15 years of their sentence. Only those who were convicted prior to Dec. 2, 2011, are eligible to apply under the provision.

The Parole Board of Canada would ultimately decide whether to grant Plourde’s release, should the jury agree to allow him an early application at the end of the three-week hearing that began Jan. 8.

After one of his defence lawyers, Carley Mahoney, asked Plourde to confirm he planned and executed the killing of Fernando, he began to choke up. Through brief tears, Plourde told the jury he did.

“I was selfish, resentful, bitter, (with) low self-esteem,” Plourde said, when asked to describe himself at 19, before testifying about his childhood and teen years.

The man told court he met Fernando while they worked together at a fast food restaurant at Main Street and Mountain Avenue in 2006.

They had a brief relationship and had sex twice that fall, but he wanted to break it off, while she insisted on it continuing, Plourde told court. Fernando later told him she was pregnant. He said he was riddled with anxiety over the pregnancy.

He had already begun a relationship with another co-worker, and pressured Fernando to have an abortion, to which she eventually agreed, provided he stay with her for a short time to comfort her afterward, Plourde told the jury.

However, Plourde said, all he could think of was his well-being and saving his new relationship. That set into motion a plan to kill Fernando, ultimately along with two accomplices: a youth who later pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and Jose Manuel Toruno, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Plourde and the youth, hidden beneath a blanket in the backseat, drove to pick up Fernando the night of the killing. In the car, under the seat, he had hidden a monkey wrench he took from his father’s tool collection.

They drove Fernando out to Little Mountain Park on the city’s northwest edge, where Fernando told Plourde she had dreamt the night before that she would be murdered on Feb. 15 — something he admitted to the jury for the first time Wednesday.

“I hate to admit it, but I had sheer hatred and resentment and bitterness toward her,” Plourde said, before describing how he ran at her after she left the car, swinging the wrench at her head.

He missed once, but ultimately struck her on the head about 20 times before placing her in the trunk of his car and leaving to pick up Toruno while in a panic, Plourde told the jury.

Toruno later beat the injured woman further with a broken hockey stick, before the youth and Toruno ditched her in the snow as Plourde stood watch. The trio got rid of the weapons, Fernando’s possessions and their clothing.

“I was just so focused on myself at the time and not Roxanne’s, nor the child, and my focus was — I thought my relationship with (the other co-worker) was in jeopardy, that’s all I was thinking about and not regarding Roxanne’s life, nor the child’s,” he said, when Mahoney asked him to tell the jury why he killed Fernando.

“It just clouded everything in my mind.”

Plourde said he did not think of the potential repercussions and the effect on Fernando’s family and others.

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“I could have just (taken) responsibility from the get-go,” he said. “I should have reached out for help (instead of committing the crime).”

His defence lawyers, Mahoney and Ashley Anderson, have told court Plourde has done significant work to rehabilitate himself while incarcerated, including by developing a deep relationship with Christianity.

The hearing thus far has logged testimony from corrections employees, as well as two chaplains who have worked with Plourde while he’s been imprisoned.

Plourde is expected to testify further today about his time in prison, before he is cross-examined by Crown prosecutor Mike Desautels.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Erik Pindera
Reporter

Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020.  Read more about Erik.

Every piece of reporting Erik produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.