Accused in random stabbings carries court history of assault convictions

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This article was published 14/03/2023 (1298 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man accused of stabbing two people at random downtown last week was arrested in October for allegedly chasing a staff member of a Main Street gathering place, threatening to spray her with a fire extinguisher while in methamphetamine psychosis.

Winnipeg police recently charged Julius Kincaid Kilbourne, 28, with two counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose in connection to two stabbings March 10.

He was detained by police. The charges haven’t yet been heard in court.

The first victim was shopping at a store on Portage Avenue near Donald Street (identified by the Free Press as a Dollar Tree location) when he was confronted by a man with a knife and stabbed at about 5 p.m., police said.

The suspect fled. A few minutes later, the suspect confronted a man who was walking on the sidewalk and, after a quick conversation, stabbed him, police said.

“These stabbings were considered random by an individual presenting with the effects of consuming methamphetamine,” Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Const. Dani McKinnon said Monday.

On Jan. 19, provincial court Judge Timothy Killeen sentenced Kilbourne to one day in custody and five months of probation for assault with a weapon and two probation order breaches, taking into account the time Kilbourne had spent at Milner Ridge Correctional Centre since an Oct. 1 arrest by Winnipeg police.

According to court documents, Kilbourne was charged with the breaches for earlier contacting a former domestic partner contrary to his probation order.

Crown attorney Nick Reeves told court Kilbourne was at Thunderbird House on Main Street at about 6 p.m. Oct. 1, when he began talking to himself and staring at a female employee, which made her uncomfortable.

She went into an office and tried to close the door; Kilbourne put his foot in the gap and came inside. She asked him to leave. Instead, he grabbed a fire extinguisher, pulled the pin and chased her around the building, posturing as if he was going to spray her with it, Reeves told court.

The staff member managed to get away from Kilbourne outside, then went back in and called for Winnipeg police.

“He was extremely intoxicated at the time, to the point that he was having auditory (and) visual hallucinations,” defence lawyer Andrew McKelvey-Gunson told court of the October incident.

Kilbourne had reportedly been awake for several days, after a friend had injected him intravenously with meth.

McKelvey-Gunson said Kilbourne hadn’t injected the drug before and it really “set him off.” Kilbourne told court he had recently learned of the death of his best friend, which led to using meth again after a period of sobriety.

“It’s quite clear, he’s grown up in poverty, he’s grown up surrounded by violence and addiction,” said McKelvey-Gunson.

Kilbourne was raised in Oxford House, a Cree community in the province’s northeast, from which he was later banned by the band council.

Court heard his lengthy criminal history — which dates to 2013 and includes eight additional convictions for varying levels of assault, including one count of assaulting a police officer — was largely tied to addictions issues.

“Mr. Kilbourne, when he’s sober, he has a lot going for him,” McKelvey-Gunson said.

Killeen ordered Kilbourne to attend a sober-living house on Machray Avenue, where he had previously stayed, four hours after he was released from provincial jail and dropped off in Winnipeg in January.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera