Second-degree murder charge in May stabbing By: Dean Pritchard Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, Jun. 27, 2019

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This article was published 27/06/2019 (2266 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police have arrested a 36-year-old man in connection to the May stabbing death of Jesse Robert David Catterson.

Donald Leslie Parisien was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder, the Winnipeg Police Service said.

The death of Catterson, 36, marked the city’s 16th homicide of 2019.

Police said officers found him May 21, suffering from a stab wound on the 500 block of Flora Avenue. He was transported to hospital in critical condition, but died from his injuries.

Parisien has a lengthy criminal record, which includes convictions for auto theft, breaking and entering, and drug offences.

In February 2011, he was sentenced to six years in prison for his involvement in an armed home invasion.

According to court records, Parisien and two other men were armed with a baseball bat, machete and firearm when they forced their way into a Pritchard Avenue home May 2, 2010. They robbed a woman of her purse and cellphone but fled when they realized police had been called.

When arrested, Parisien told police: “We were supposed to go in, hold the girl hostage, and clean the place out.”

The home invasion occurred just 16 days after he had started serving a six-month conditional sentence for breaching court orders.

“He doesn’t see himself as a hardened drug dealer… He sees himself as someone who is trying to provide for his family.”–Parisien’s lawyer at sentencing

Most recently, Parisien was sentenced in July 2017 to 20 months in jail for selling methamphetamine.

A meth user himself, Parisien turned to drug dealing to help support his three young children and his mother, Parisien’s lawyer told court.

“Unfortunately, the ease with which he was able to get funds has led him to be non-legally employed,” the lawyer said at the 2017 sentencing. “He doesn’t see himself as a hardened drug dealer… He sees himself as someone who is trying to provide for his family.”

Parisien told provincial court Judge Kelly Moar he wanted to change, but needed counselling.

“I just kept making mistakes,” he said. “I didn’t have the proper guidance.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean 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.