Trapper tells court about finding slain man’s body

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/01/2025 (220 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Trapper Thomas Thomas and his cousin were on the northern fringes of Roseau River First Nation looking for game Aug. 11, 2020, when he got out of his truck and smelled what he thought was a dead animal, possibly a deer.

“You could smell (it) almost immediately,” Thomas told a jury Tuesday.

Thomas followed his nose several feet into a ditch off the side of the road, thinking he could use a piece of the carcass to bait his trap line.

Thomas didn’t find a deer carcass, but a body of a man, 56-year-old Bud Paul, of Winnipeg.

Paul was on his back, on top of a cluster of willows, Thomas said. “I could see his hands, they were upright, almost closed, like a fist,” he said.

“I walked backward, pushed (my cousin) backward and drove backward” a few hundred metres to the next road intersection, he said. “We were shocked and we just wanted to leave everything as it was. We didn’t want to disturb nothing.”

Thomas said they drove to the local police station, didn’t find anyone, then drove home and called police, who arrived minutes later.

Aaron Mousseau Abigosis, 43, is on trial charged with first-degree murder in Paul’s Aug. 3, 2020 death.

Prosecutors allege Mousseau Abigosis severely beat Paul, drove down a dead-end gravel road outside Roseau River, where he dragged Paul into the bush and used what was described as a bush ax to slice him in the abdomen.

Paul’s burned-out vehicle was found on Queen Street, near Polo Park mall on Aug. 10.

Paul’s naked body was in an advanced state of decomposition when discovered, and showed signs of blunt force trauma and sharp force wounds, chief medical examiner Dr. John Younes testified.

“In my opinion, he had been dead at least a few days,” Younes said.

Paul had worked at Palliser Furniture in Winnipeg for nearly two decades. Amber Penner-Biernes, human resources manager at the company, testified she called Paul’s cellphone when he didn’t show up for work Aug. 4. Penner-Biernes said a man answered the phone, identified himself as “Buddy” and said he was “feeling under the weather.”

Paul “never referred to himself as ‘Buddy,’” Penner-Biernes said. “That wasn’t something he would do.”

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Paul Samyn | Editor's Note

Wednesdays

A weekly dispatch from the head of the Free Press newsroom.

Sign up for Paul Samyn | Editor's Note

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Penner-Biernes said Paul didn’t show up for work again the next day. When she called his cellphone again, a woman answered and told her Paul “was not available.”

Penner-Biernes called police on Aug. 7 and asked them to do a wellness check at Paul’s Hespeler Avenue apartment. A police constable testified he found no sign of Paul at his apartment.

Neighbour Bruce Sinclair testified he last saw Paul driving away from his apartment Aug. 1 in the company of a man and woman, both of whom were Indigenous.

Janine Atkinson, a one-time co-accused alleged to have been present when Paul ws killed, has been granted immunity from prosecution in return for her testimony against Mouseau Abigosis. She is expected to testify next week.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.