Man charged in fatal crash near Portage out on bail

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/01/2025 (262 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man charged with driving a stolen truck while impaired, then killing a woman on a highway near Portage la Prairie Wednesday, was out on bail and had breached his release conditions multiple times, including on New Year’s Day, court records show.

James Lorne Hilton, 24, of St. Andrews, is accused of being involved in a three-vehicle highway crash Wednesday morning.

Mounties were sent to the scene on Highway 26, about three kilometres east of Portage, at 10:50 a.m. where they found a High Bluff woman dead, RCMP said in a news release Thursday.

“We have someone that we believe was under the influence of either alcohol or a drug, so for that time of morning to be getting behind the wheel — it’s completely senseless, it’s pointless and, unfortunately, we have a 28-year-old woman who has paid the ultimate price,” Manitoba RCMP spokesman Sgt. Paul Manaigre said.

“There are many family and friends that are going to miss this person for something that was easily preventable; that shouldn’t have occurred.”

The preliminary investigation determined a pickup was headed westbound when it veered over the centre line, causing an eastbound pickup to swerve. The westbound truck went into a ditch and rolled, while the eastbound truck collided with a westbound SUV driven by the victim, RCMP said.

The driver of the westbound pickup was able to get out of the truck and was picked up by a passing motorist, who dropped him off at a nearby gas station. It was later found that the pickup truck he was driving had been stolen in Arborg, police said.

“We had witnesses on scene that basically saw the truck roll. It rolled and the driver ended up basically kicking the window out to get out,” Manaigre said. “Someone stopped to check up on him and he asked for a ride.”

The driver told the person who picked him up that he needed to go to the gas station to contact his family. After he dropped the man off, the Good Samaritan grew suspicious and went back to the crash site to tell officers what had happened, Manaigre said.

“That’s when we started putting two and two together,” Manaigre said.

A staff member at the Flying J Travel Centre on the Trans-Canada Highway told the Free Press a man believed to be the suspect was spotted at the gas station shortly after the collision.

“He had just come from that way (the direction of the crash) and then like 10 minutes later the RCMP came here looking for somebody and it seemed to be the same guy,” the staff member said.

The suspect entered the gas station and told staff he was waiting for a ride to Brandon. He disappeared before police arrived, the worker said.

Investigators learned the suspect was picked up by a cab and believed to be headed to Winnipeg. The cabbie told police the man had been dropped off near a motel on the Trans-Canada Highway in Headingley, RCMP said.

Police arrested the suspect within two hours of the crash, Manaigre said.

“Lucky for us he rolled. Imagine he didn’t hit the ditch and kept going — would we have witnesses to identify him?… It just basically puts the whole timeline between the collision and the time of the arrest (so) we know what he did.”

A second victim, the 21-year-old man who was driving the eastbound pickup, was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, RCMP said.

Manaigre said he believes that victim, who is from Portage, was treated in hospital and released.

A review of court records shows Hilton has a criminal history that dates back to July 2024, when he pleaded guilty to drug possession and was released on a conditional discharge.

Hilton was charged the same day with break and enter, and then again in September for trespassing, possessing tools for break and enter and failing to comply with his curfew.

On Dec. 14, 17, 31 and Jan. 1, he was given separate charges for violating his release conditions. None of those charges has been tested in court.

On Wednesday, RCMP charged him with dangerous driving causing death, driving while impaired, failure to stop after a fatal collision, possession of property obtained by crime and resisting arrest.

In addition, he has been charged with possessing a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking.

Manaigre said officers found drugs in the stolen pickup truck.

Vehicles involved in the collision were seized by police and will be subject to further forensic investigation, including the retrieval of internal computers which can provide more data about the circumstances of the crash, Manaigre said.

—With files from Erik Pindera

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca