Life sentence, no parole for 15 years for 2020 Lake Manitoba murder

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This article was published 10/05/2023 (905 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Phoenix Maytwayashing couldn’t take no for an answer and Monica Chippeway paid for it with her life, a judge said Wednesday, before sentencing the 23-year-old man to life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 15 years.

Chippeway, 35, died March 26, 2020, inside her Lake Manitoba First Nation home, following a frenzied knife attack witnessed by her young daughter.

Maytwayashing was convicted of second-degree murder after a trial last year.

He never denied killing Chippeway, his on-again, off-again girlfriend, but argued at trial he was so intoxicated by drugs and alcohol he had no memory of the attack and should be convicted of the lesser offence of manslaughter.

Maytwayashing was convicted of a second count of assault causing bodily harm, after Chippeway’s daughter sustained minor knife wounds to her head and arm defending her mother.

Court heard evidence at trial Maytwayashing visited Chippeway’s house three times the day she was killed.

He arrived the first time with a bottle of wine and Chippeway turned him away. He returned sometime later with a bag of groceries and was turned away again.

When Maytwayashing returned a third time, he stabbed Chippeway 32 times in the face, neck and body as her seven-year-old daughter tried in vain to intervene before fleeing the house for help.

“The accused was unable or unwilling to accept a firm ‘no’ as an answer and he forced (Chippeway) to pay for the decision with her life,” King’s Bench Justice Herbert Rempel said Wednesday.

Court heard Chippeway’s brother arrived at the house to find her on the floor in a pool of blood and a fire started in the kitchen. Maytwayashing charged at the man from another room and took him to the floor before running out of the house.

Maytwayashing returned to the house where he was living drenched in blood and told those inside he had “f—-ed up” before ordering them to leave.

Maytwayashing set fire to the house before he was subdued by a community safety officer and taken into custody.

According to a pre-sentence report prepared for court, Maytwayashing had an upbringing marked by substance abuse, domestic violence and a lack of family supports.

Maytwayashing’s lawyers argued his personal history of abuse and disadvantage and other Gladue factors particular to Indigenous offenders justified a 12-year period of parole ineligibility.

Rempel said the “ghastly and vicious” circumstances of the killing could not support such a recommendation.

“I am alive to the fact the accused came of age in a home environment where violent and abusive behaviour was the norm,” the judge said.

“But I cannot lose sight of the fact that violence against Indigenous women and girls continues to be an ongoing crisis in Canada… Ms. Chippeway was murdered because she wanted her right to say ‘no’ respected.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca