Battered woman admits to killing husband

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This article was published 15/09/2022 (1127 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Madeline Harper loved her husband and he loved her, she told a Winnipeg court, but when Dalius Harper drank, it could unleash a fury no amount of affection could contain.

“No matter what, the good times outweighed the bad, because there were a lot of good times,” an emotional Harper told King’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond on Monday, minutes after admitting to stabbing Dalius to death at their Garden Hill First Nation home on Oct. 23, 2020.

“It’s all alcohol, everything is alcohol and I hate it, it took everything from me,” said Harper, 37.

“The anniversary of their being together was usually a date when there was violence in the home, which is horrifying.”–Crown attorney Sivananthan Sivarouban

The couple, who had eight children during their nearly 20-year relationship, were celebrating their anniversary and had been drinking “super juice,” a powerful home brew, with friends when, according to Madeline, Dalius assaulted her and Madeline “hit him back” with a knife stab to the back, Crown attorney Sivananthan Sivarouban told court, reading from an agreed statement of facts.

Emergency responders rushed Dalius, 35, to the nursing station; he died a short time later.

“The anniversary of their being together was usually a date when there was violence in the home, which is horrifying,” Sivarouban said.

Harper, who served just over five months in custody before she was granted bail, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and in a sentence jointly recommended by the Crown and defence was ordered to serve three years of supervised probation.

Harper suffered attacks from her husband throughout their relationship, beginning when she was 16, including being burned by a hot knife, having her finger broken and being beaten with a guitar. The incidents of violence escalated during pandemic lockdowns in the weeks prior to Dalius’s death.

A psychological assessment found Harper was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder “due to domestic violence and depression and that this disorder and her experience of abuse impacted her perceptions of threat and danger,” said the agreed statement of facts.

Harper never reported the assaults to police, but they were corroborated by pictures she took of her injuries and by two of her children, who witnessed much of the violence, Sivarouban said.

Had the case gone to trial, Harper would have had a strong argument for self-defence, said her lawyer Tony Kavanagh, but she did not want to put her family through the trauma of having to testify in court.

“The most tragic thing… is how this silent scourge of domestic violence goes unreported and undealt with in the community,” Kavanagh said.

“She bears a lot of guilt,” he said. “For the rest of their lives, their children know their father was killed by her.”

“For the rest of their lives, their children know their father was killed by her.”–Defence lawyer Tony Kavanagh

While Harper had clearly been battered by her husband, inconsistencies in her police statement, including no acknowledgment other people were in the home at the time of the stabbing, raised doubt about a self-defence claim had the case gone to trial, Sivarouban said.

“But there was still the PTSD diagnosis and the fact she felt she was in danger… As such, self-defence was a live issue,” he said. “The fact she is pleading guilty is a significant expression of remorse.”

Harper was released on bail into the custody of the Elizabeth Fry Society and completed counselling related to trauma, addictions and parenting, Sivarouban said. She has been sober for 13 months.

“The focus here is that Ms. Harper is rehabilitated and in ensuring… that she has the tools to properly deal with her trauma,” Sivarouban said.

Harper said it was important for her family’s healing that she take responsibility for the killing.

“I will take this for my family,” she said. “It’s for my kids. It’s not my future no more, it’s theirs.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca