‘We will get through this, but it’s not going to be easy’

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This article was published 12/02/2024 (627 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CARMAN — The shocking, violent deaths of a mother, her teenage niece and three children from this southern Manitoba community have left horrified residents struggling to make sense of the bloodshed.

“This is the second year that we’ve lived here, and in the summers we’d watch the kids play in the backyard and everything else like that,” said Daniel Schmitt, who lives near the home at 110 3rd St. NW, where all of the victims and the man accused of killing them lived.

“It’s a pretty scary feeling, the fact that you don’t know what’s going on in your neighbour’s house. You’d just never expect it, like, ever. It’s an absolute shock to the town.”

Schmitt spoke from his front steps Monday, watching as forensic investigators entered and exited the nearby home where Mounties found the body of one of the victims a day earlier.

RCMP officers stationed outside stood watch over the property, which was littered with children’s toys.

Schmitt first realized something was going on Sunday evening, when numerous police units descended on the house, cordoning off a perimeter with yellow caution tape. By then, news of what took place was beginning to spread throughout town, he said.

Manitoba RCMP said a Carman woman and her three children were found at separate crime scenes earlier Sunday.

Friends of the five victims identified them to the Free Press as 30-year-old Amanda Clearwater, her three children — Bethany, 6, Jayven, 4, and 2 1/2-month-old baby Isabella — and Clearwater’s 17-year-old niece, Myah Gratton.

Police located Clearwater’s body in a ditch approximately seven kilometres south of Carman at about 7:20 a.m.

The children were pronounced dead near a burning SUV 70 kilometres north, near St. Eustache, at about 10 a.m.

Clearwater’s common-law husband and father to all three children, Ryan Howard Manoakeesick, 29, was arrested without incident near the burning vehicle. The investigation later led police to the Carman home, where they located Gratton’s body.

Manoakeesick has been charged with first-degree murder in all five slayings.

“He was a weird dude,” Schmitt said of Manoakeesick, adding he’d interacted with the “cold” man a few times in recent months and had witnessed him use drugs in the backyard of the neighbouring home.

“We have a very tight community. We will get through this, but it’s not going to be easy.”– Carman Mayor Brent Owen

“I felt like adopting the kids because I felt bad for the environment they were in.”

In the hours after the body was discovered inside the house, Schmitt said he saw area residents walking past the home in groups of two and three — some in tears, or stopping briefly behind sections of police tape to bow their heads in prayer.

Multiple people knocked on his door Sunday night, offering support to him and others in the immediate area, he said.

He stayed home from work Monday to spend time with his wife and one-year-old daughter; he believes other people in the community did the same.

“Nobody is ever very prepared to deal with this type of scenario,” Carman Mayor Brent Owen said, describing the slayings as “horrific.”

“We have a very tight community. We will get through this, but it’s not going to be easy.”

Owen said he’s fielded dozens of calls from reporters, community members and public officials from across Canada regarding the tragedy, including Premier Wab Kinew.

He has been meeting with town council members to discuss bringing in counsellors to help the community deal with the traumatic situation.

Support workers are also slated to appear at Carman Collegiate, where Gratton was a student, he said.

Rev. Harold Kenyon, leader of Carman United Church, said he too, has been meeting with community leaders.

“My colleagues were in this morning and we were just making a list of all the people who have been affected by this and how the church and the community can support each other,” he said.

“Certainly, for the families that are involved in this and also the RCMP and first responders, we are just trying to be helpful.”

The church opened its doors to the public Monday, offering a sanctuary for grieving residents.

Carman Community Wellness, a local non-profit organization, is planning to host its monthly community dinner Wednesday with extra staff on hand to support those who attend, Kenyon added.

“This is a very generous community, and I think there is a strong sense of togetherness,” he said. “No one person or group can provide all the help. It’s really complicated…. We’ve been encouraging people to not be alone, to reach out for help, pray for their neighbours and stay connected.”

Barbara Alarie, owner of Bell Aura Bed, Breakfast & Bistro, said Manoakeesick stayed with her for a month about five years ago.

She said he told her he was dealing with mental illness and had recently sought psychiatric help,.

A review of court records confirmed Manoakeesick struggled with mental illness and addictions around 2019, when he was convicted of a drug-fuelled crime and ordered to attend addictions and mental-health assessments.

“What the hell happened? Was there no followup? Was anybody checking up on him? He obviously had a mental disorder,” Alarie said. “This could have been prevented.”

She did not know any of the victims, but said the news has devastated the community.

“It didn’t seem true,” she said. “It seemed like something on TV, but then you find out who it is and it seemed truer and truer.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

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