Five-year sentence in plea deal becomes eight for woman who admits to bigger role in slaying due to ‘desire to be truthful’

A Winnipeg woman has been sentenced to eight years in prison for her part in the killing of a 27-year-old mother of three whose body was hidden inside a kitchen pantry for over a week before it was discovered by police.

The 24-year-old offender pleaded guilty to manslaughter as part of a limited immunity agreement that will require her to testify against three of her co-accused — all of whom are gang members — in the June 2024 stabbing death of Ashley Murdock.

Court heard the woman had originally agreed to plead guilty in return for a Crown recommendation she be sentenced to five years in prison but later provided a detailed video statement that implicated her more seriously in the killing, knowing it would likely result in a longer sentence.

The woman “to her credit, did something that in 26 years I have never seen,” Crown attorney Brent Davidson told provincial court Judge Kusham Sharma.

“One of the terms (of the agreement) required that the details in her (first) statement be true and complete — and through their counsel advised that they could not honestly enter into that agreement as there was more to be told,” Davidson said.

“They, in effect, risked the possibility of receiving five years, owing to their desire to be truthful…. Their rationale was remorse and a belief that Ashley’s family needed to know the truth about what happened — all without a guarantee of consideration.”

The Free Press is not naming the woman because of expressed concerns about her safety in custody.

“She does want to assist, she does want to help (Murdock’s) family… and she does so under risk of harm,” Davidson said. “She will, for the foreseeable future, be in a federal institution, being an individual who has agreed to testify against three known gang members. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to say that she knows her life will be at risk.”

Court heard Murdock was at an Edmonton Street apartment suite when, according to the offender, she started acting “sketchy” while using her cellphone.

A male co-accused grabbed Murdock’s cellphone and a female co-accused (who has since died) started beating her head. The female co-accused asked for the offender’s help and she joined in the attack, beating Murdock on the head before binding her wrists with duct tape.

Murdock was taken to the bathroom, where the female accused bound her ankles and the offender covered her mouth with duct tape.

The two women and three male accused “began verbally accosting (Murdock) about the phone calls, demanding to know who she was calling,” Davidson said.

When Murdock didn’t answer, the group stood her under the shower, alternating the water temperature from scalding hot to extremely cold.

“That proved unsuccessful in their efforts to extract information from her and a decision was ultimately made by (other accused, not the offender) that Ms. Murdock would not be leaving the suite,” Davidson said.

The two women and three male accused took turns attacking Murdock with a bat, towel bar and machete.

After a prolonged beating, one of the male accused “decided that a ‘hot shot’ (a syringe filed with methamphetamine and other street drugs) should be administered to (Murdock)” in the hopes she would fatally overdose, Davidson said.

“Efforts were made by all of the offenders inside the bathroom to administer that to Ms. Murdock, but that proved unsuccessful,” he said.

A male accused then pulled out a hunting knife and stabbed Murdock in the heart.

Security video recorded two days later captured three males pulling a wagon bearing Murdock’s body inside a hockey bag to a Kennedy Street apartment building.

City police, responding to an anonymous tip just over a week later, found Murdock’s badly decomposed remains, still inside the hockey bag, stashed in an apartment suite behind a pantry door that had been taped shut.

Several of Murdock’s family members and friends attended the sentencing hearing, describing her in victim impact statements as a positive and loving young woman who strived to provide a better life for her young children.

“What could she have possibly done to never see her children grow up?” said cousin Liane Barker.

“There are no answers that will ever make sense…. The world seems dimmer without her.”

Family members spent days looking for Murdock after she disappeared.

“You knew where Ashley was, you saw what happened,” her sister Trinity Murdock told the offender. “Yet you still stood there in silence, like the coward you are. You are no woman and I have no sympathy for you. I hope you never have a moment of peace and suffer like me and my family suffer every day.”

Court heard the offender has prior convictions for robbery, aggravated assault and other offences, all directly tied to long-standing drug addiction issues. At the time of Murdock’s slaying, the offender had been out of custody less than two months.

Defence lawyer Wendy Martin White said her client experienced a “revelation” in custody and wanted to “repent” for what she had done.

The offender offered a tear-filled apology to Murdock’s family.

“I am truly sorry for all the pain and suffering I have put your family through,” she said. “At the time everything happened so fast… I wasn’t thinking about the consequences of my actions.”

Summer Patchinose, who lived in the apartment suite where Murdock’s body was concealed, pleaded guilty to one count of interfering with human remains and was sentenced in May to two years in prison.

In April, co-accused Charles Harold Wood, one of the men who moved Murdock’s body to Patchinose’s suite, pleaded guilty to performing an indignity to human remains and was sentenced to two years custody.

Dregus Young, Kenny Walter Young and Devon Charlie Colomb are set to stand trial for murder next year.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca