‘I saw her lying on the steps. It was pretty horrible’

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This article was published 15/03/2017 (3158 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A tenant on Spence Street said he let a young woman use his son’s tablet computer and then heard the shot that killed her just minutes after she walked out the door Sunday night.

The tenant, who asked to remain anonymous, said he didn’t know the woman and only agreed to let her in because his neighbour asked him for a favour — to let his visitor use the Internet.

“She came down with my neighbour and asked to use my son’s tablet because he (the neighbour) didn’t have a phone,” the man said Wednesday.

“She went outside and a minute or two later, I heard the gunshot,” he said, adding at first he thought it was from the TV, until his neighbour came barrelling back down the stairs, yelling “Did you hear a gunshot?”

“I looked outside and I saw her lying on the steps,” the tenant said. “It was pretty horrible.”

“I didn’t see who shot her and I don’t know who she was meeting,” the man said.

The killing has rattled him.

“I never thought something like this was going to happen when I let her use my kid’s tablet.”

On Wednesday, Winnipeg police identified the woman who was shot as Shania Chanel Chartrand, 21.

Police still have the tablet Chartrand used to reach the person she asked to meet her at the address, the tenant said, who said he and others in the two-storey house were questioned by police following the shooting.

The shooting took place at the front steps of 247 Spence St., a house that’s been converted into four suites with shared bathrooms. The landlord only rents to men, a reporter was told Wednesday.

“She said her name was Shavel,” the tenant said.

“I didn’t know her real name until police released it. She looked normal. And she said, ‘Oh, I’m so happy. I didn’t do drugs all day today.’”

The woman sat on his couch, picked up the tablet and appeared to be surfing through Facebook, using the messenger service that’s attached to the social media platform, he said.

That went on for five to 10 minutes.

“She was trying to get someone to meet her out front,” the tenant said. The woman left after thanking the tenant and saying her “cousin” was going to meet her.

It’s the second recent unsettling incident at the rooming house, he reported.

A couple of weeks ago a fire sent flames up the exterior siding on the porch. He threw water on the flames until fire trucks arrived and put the fire out, he said.

“The first year there were no complaints. But a couple of weeks ago someone set a fire outside the house. It’s been pretty horrible (since then). The house nearly goes up in flames and then somebody gets killed,” the man said.

The neighbourhood, tucked behind the Winnipeg Art Gallery and just a block or two south of the University of Winnipeg campus is normally quiet, neighbours agreed.

About three or four months ago that changed, with a new tenant that neighbours say has visitors coming and going all the time.

One neighbour said she found a drug stash next to the house about a week ago and turned it over to police when they showed up a few days later.

It contained a syringe needle, a pipe and a baggie of powder she believed was cocaine.

No arrests have been made in the homicide, the city’s sixth this year.

In the statement that released the woman’s name, Const. Jason Michalyshen said police are looking for help with the investigation.

Anyone with information should call 204-986-6508 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS (8477).

— staff