Arsonist pleads guilty to manslaughter

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This article was published 02/10/2023 (811 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man has admitted to intentionally setting a fire that claimed the life of an Osborne Village shopkeeper two years ago.

Sixty-year-old Jung Ja Shin died Aug. 15, 2021, after she was pulled from a fire at the E-Mart convenience store at 157 Scott St., where she lived in a second-storey apartment with her son.

Douglas Wayne Last, 53, pleaded guilty Friday to manslaughter.

Last will return to court for sentencing in January. He remains in custody.

Prosecutors told King’s Bench Justice Chris Martin they will be seeking a sentence of up to 12 years in prison.

According to an agreed statement of facts read out in court, security video captured a man acknowledged to be Last using a lighter to set a fire in an area between the convenience store and an adjacent building on Wardlaw Avenue around 10:30 p.m.

Last walked away and set two more small fires in the area, including one outside the First Church of Christ the Scientist, also on Scott Street.

Shin’s adult son Jason was in the upstairs apartment playing video games at about 11 p.m. when he smelled smoke and went downstairs to investigate.

“He ran out after finding the fire and called 911,” Crown attorney Kaley Tschetter told court, reading from the agreed statement of facts. “By this time the store was engulfed in flames and he could not get in.”

Jung Ja Shin was unable to leave the apartment on her own and when firefighters arrived the heat was too intense for them to immediately enter the building, Tschetter said.

“Once they were able to enter the residence, they located (Shin), who was unresponsive,” she said.

Shin was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead; smoke inhalation was the cause of death.

Area residents described Shin as a kind and supportive presence in the community.

“She was just so happy,” Adrian Crittenden told the Free Press at the time. “Just always had the biggest smile on her face. You know that she was just pouring her heart into this store and into this community.

“I always knew going there that it was going to be a little bit more than just grabbing the milk,” he said.

Police, recognizing Last from security video, arrested him after a foot chase in the same area four days later.

Court records show Last has struggled with an addiction to methamphetamine and has multiple convictions for breaking and entering and property offences.

“I’m tired of this lifestyle and of being in jail,” he told a judge in 2018 after admitting to trying to break into a bank machine. “I just want a chance to redeem myself.”

At the time, last said if he didn’t change, “I’ll either be dead or in jail for a long period of time and I don’t want to do either of these.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca