Three victims’ families address ‘monster’

In a courtroom redolent with the smell of burning sweetgrass, three families united in grief told the killer who brought them together how he has shattered their lives.

Maxim Dale Garneau, 28, previously pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder in the killings of Daniel Raymond Garvey-Rodriquez, 25, Robert Clayton Smith, 35, and Edgar Allan Bear, 56.

Garneau did not previously know any of the victims, who were shot dead within a six-month period ending in mid-March 2024. Garneau was sentenced Wednesday to three concurrent life sentences, with no chance of parole for 18 years.

“The lives we knew were destroyed and forever changed by a heartless individual, someone who does not walk in God’s light,” said Bear’s sister Marilyn Bear, as a spiritual caregiver waved burning sweetgrass smoke over her with an eagle feather.

“The only solace I have is knowing that this monster will be locked away from society and can’t harm anyone else ever again,” Bear said.

Bear said her mother, who shared a “special connection” with her brother, died of a broken heart nine months after his murder.

“She did her best to stay here for her other children and grandchildren… but we knew that her spirit was broken,” Bear said.

The circumstances of the killings were outlined in three separate agreed statements of fact previously provided to court.

Garneau had just met Garvey-Rodriquez, his first victim, when the two men got into a heated argument at a Spence Street apartment suite on Sept. 10, 2023.

The argument escalated and turned physical, with Garvey-Rodriquez disarming Garneau of a firearm and holding a knife to his neck before a male resident separated them and ordered them to leave.

Garneau took a cab to a College Avenue apartment building where he and two companions waited in a stairwell for 20 minutes before Garvey-Rodriquez arrived. When Garvey-Rodriquez opened the door, Garneau shot him once in the chest, killing him.

Garvey-Rodriquez and his mother immigrated to Canada from Cuba when he was 12 and he “fell into the wrong crowd,” court was told.

After repeated stints in and out of custody, Garvey-Rodriquez was “searching for his place in the world,” said Chauntea Cumberland, his longtime partner, with whom he shared a young daughter.

Cumberland said they had planned to move to Cuba this year.

Garvey-Rodriquez “had the biggest heart and loved to laugh,” Cumberland said. “He was the absolute love of my life…. The foundation of my life crumbled beneath me (after his murder). My heart was absolutely broken.”

On March 16, 2024, Garneau, his then-girlfriend and a second woman took a cab to a Manitoba Avenue home, where he saw Smith in a bedroom with a “younger woman.”

Garneau pulled out a firearm and the two men argued before Garneau shot Smith two times in the head.

Garneau directed another man in the house to wrap Smith’s body in a tarp and meet him at the same College Avenue apartment where Garvey-Rodriquez was killed, “a known headquarters of the Bloods gang, to which Garneau belonged.”

In a police interview following his arrest, Garneau accused Smith of “skinning” girls, “a reference to sexually assaulting young women.” Court heard there was no basis for Garneau’s claim.

“My son did nothing wrong and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” his mother Angel Kenyon tearfully told court. “I am so sorry for my poor boy and how he must have suffered.… His life was stolen by someone with no respect or care for life.”

Two days after killing Smith, Garneau shot Bear dead at a Selkirk Avenue house, believing he had “ratted out” another man arrested after allegedly committing a robbery with Bear earlier that day.

Garneau was arrested April 11, 2024, after police identified him as a suspect in the murders of Garvey-Rodriquez and Bear. Police charged him with Smith’s murder two weeks later.

Garneau was originally charged with first-degree murder in Smith’s killing but in a plea bargain that eliminated the need for three lengthy trials admitted to second-degree murder in all three killings. Had Garneau been convicted of first-degree murder he would not have been eligible for parole for 25 years.

But for his guilty pleas, Garneau has shown no signs of remorse for his “wave of carnage,” said Crown attorney Mike Desautels, who made sentencing submissions for the Smith murder.

“Mr. Garneau’s confession (to police) was almost a diatribe or justification: Smith was a skinner, he needed to get it,” Desautels told King’s Bench Justice Joan McKelvey. “This isn’t remorse for taking a life.”

Garneau grew up in foster care, has been diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, been entrenched in gangs and the drug trade since he was a pre-teen and, in the years since, has been shot three times, court was told. He has struggled with substance abuse, particularly meth and fentanyl.

“We can’t look at Mr. Garneau and what he did without context,” said defence lawyer Tony Kavanagh.

Garneau had “nothing to lose” by fighting the charges at trial, but instead “voluntarily” agreed to plead guilty to three murders, Kavanagh said.

Garneau was remorseful for the killings, Kavanagh said, a position not visibly reflected by his demeanor in court. Garneau sat with his arms crossed for much of the daylong hearing, maintaining a neutral, unchanging expression on his face as victim family members told court how the killings had left their lives in ruins.

When McKelvey asked Garneau if he had any words for the court, he said simply: “No.”

“People speak of forgiveness — to me forgiveness is something that is given through sincerity and honesty,” Marilyn Bear told Garneau earlier in the hearing. “Forgiveness is given to those who apologize with their heart and soul. You have admitted your guilt for the murders you have committed, but you have done this for your own advantage. I look upon a person who has no remorse, someone who has not apologized to our family.”

Garneau had a troubled start in life, but he had a choice to be better, Bear said.

“We have no choice about the lives we are born into, but we do have choices to make as we grow into adults,” she said. “You can live in the past and make everyone suffer for your pain or we can decide to heal and make a better life for ourselves and our families.”

McKelvey said Garneau’s killing rampage was “difficult to comprehend.”

“His actions make absolutely no sense,” she said.

Earlier this month, Garneau was sentenced to seven years in prison for a grisly attack on another victim after killing Garvey-Rodriquez.

Garneau cut off the thumb of a woman he suspected of stealing from him.

Garneau’s sentence for that attack will be served concurrent to his murder sentences and will result in no additional prison time.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca