‘Completely preventable and senseless’

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This article was published 30/01/2024 (971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man who was high on methamphetamine and banned from driving for life when he killed a Winnipeg grandmother with a vehicle while fleeing police has been sentenced to seven years in prison for the “completely preventable and senseless” death.

James Joseph Wieler, now 33, was driving a BMW east on Provencher Boulevard just after noon on Oct. 4, 2021 when he lost control on the bridge across the Seine River near Rue Nadeau. He was travelling at about 105 km/h, and the vehicle was launched over the median, landing on the hood and windshield of Cynthia Duncan’s KIA Optima, which was headed west, shearing off part of its roof. Police arrived moments later.

Just shy of her 60th birthday, Duncan was killed instantly, Crown prosecutor Melissa Hazelton told provincial court at Wieler’s sentencing hearing Monday, which was attended by Duncan’s family members and loved ones.

One of her stepdaughters, Alana Duncan, told court she woke the day after her beloved stepmother’s death and felt that “nothing will ever be normal again.”

“I have been reliving that feeling since. She was the energy centre of our family, so many things to so many people. It’s impossible to convey what she meant to our family and what it’s meant she’s been gone,” Alana Duncan told provincial court Judge Cynthia Devine.

Minutes before the collision, Wieler had fled an attempted traffic stop by Winnipeg Police Service constables about a kilometre west, near the Provencher Bridge, after they ran the vehicle’s licence plate and found it had been cancelled.

He drove at high speeds on Provencher Boulevard, which was crowded with traffic and pedestrians on the sidewalks, as the police followed at a distance.

Wieler was arrested after running away from the scene by the two constables, while bystanders approached Duncan’s vehicle seeing that she was deceased.

Hazelton told court that police and paramedics observed that Wieler appeared high on methamphetamine, which he later admitted to having taken about a half-hour to an hour prior to getting behind the wheel.

Wieler pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death, flight from police and driving while prohibited in June 2022. His existing lifetime driving ban had been put in place in 2006 by Manitoba Public Insurance as a result of auto theft-related convictions, court heard Monday.

Alana Duncan said the “incredibly generous and supportive” Duncan was “kind, caring and accepting,” and had become even more important to her after the birth of her son a few years prior to the fatal collision.

“It breaks my heart when I think of how my son has been robbed of growing up with such an amazing grandmother,” she told court.

“To lose someone young and vibrant and in such a completely preventable and senseless way is very hard to explain to a first-grader. How can I explain it when I can’t comprehend it myself?”

Duncan and her husband, who has since died, had just made their final mortgage payment and were planning a dinner to celebrate before her death, having already bought a bottle of champagne, she said.

“My dad was a broken man after her death, and to say he struggled is an understatement. To him, she was everything… a loving, devoted wife; his health-care advocate; his companion and cheerleader in life.”– Alana Duncan speaking about how her step-mother’s death had affected her father, saying he died of a broken heart.

The victim took care of her husband, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a few years earlier and grew ill, and watched over his health needs.

“My dad was a broken man after her death, and to say he struggled is an understatement. To him, she was everything — a loving, devoted wife; his health-care advocate; his companion and cheerleader in life,” she said.

“For my sisters and I, our grief has been compounded watching his physical and emotional decline due to her death.”

He died in June last year after he had to move into an assisted-living facility following his wife’s death, Alana Duncan told court. Her father told her to tell anyone who asked that he died of a broken heart.

Hazelton told court Wieler’s prior record includes convictions for theft, mischief, robbery, drug possession and possession for the purpose of trafficking, as well as several convictions related to taking vehicles without consent and possessing vehicles illegally.

He had been released from jail just weeks before killing Duncan.

“Mr. Wieler has a lengthy and relatively unbroken criminal record with a variety of convictions,” Hazelton said.

He has spent most of his adult life incarcerated, with the longest period of time out in the community “a couple of months,” Hazelton said, adding his behaviour is tied to his substance-abuse problems, for which he has participated in programming in jail.

“When Mr. Wieler is in the community he is either incapable of or unwilling to address the substance-abuse issues,” Hazelton said.

Defence lawyer Barry Sinder said Wieler had been out on the street since the age of 13, which is when he began to do drugs with other street kids and adults.

“That’s unfortunately been his life for almost two decades,” said Sinder.

Wieler apologized to Duncan’s family and the court, adding that he feels he deserves all their scorn.

Hazelton and Sinder both recommended he be sentenced to seven years, less time served, meaning he will be imprisoned for just over 31/2 years going forward.

Wieler will be banned from driving in Canada for 181/2 years and banned from owning weapons for life.

Devine accepted the recommendation.

“Mr. Wieler will, in a few minutes, go to prison and that part, at least, will be finished for you,” Devine told Duncan’s family. “The rest of it, I hope, gets easier over time.”

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca