Cousins plead guilty to murder, manslaughter

A heated exchange of words between a 21-year-old woman and an 11-year-old boy ended in the unprovoked slaying of an innocent stranger, a court has heard.

Kyle Harper, 26, and cousin Ramona Harper, 23, pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder and manslaughter, respectively, in the August 2023 killing of 38-year-old Cory Roulette.

According to an agreed statement of facts read out in court, Ramona Harper and another woman were walking past Roulette’s Furby Street apartment building at about 11 p.m. when Harper kicked over some garbage cans, attracting the attention of an 11-year-old boy who was visiting Roulette and standing on his second-floor balcony.

The boy and Harper yelled at each other with the boy threatening to shoot Harper.

Harper left, saying, “I’m going to get my brothers and shoot the place up,” Crown attorney Jennifer Comack told King’s Bench Justice Sadie Bond, reading from the agreed statement of facts.

Harper returned to her Langside Street home a short walk away and “incited” Kyle Harper and another man to accompany her to the apartment building and “violently confront” the occupant of the second-floor suite.

Kyle Harper was armed with a loaded, sawed-off rifle and the second man with a collapsible baton when the trio broke the door open to Roulette’s suite. Once inside, the second man beat Roulette about the body and face with the baton before Kyle Harper shot him once in the chest.

Comack’s description of the killing elicited loud yowls of pain from members of Roulette’s family seated in the court gallery.

The attackers fled and a neighbour called 911. Roulette was taken to Health Sciences Centre where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Kyle Harper and Ramona Harper will be sentenced at a later date following the completion of court-ordered reports.

A third accused, 20-year-old Raoul Harper, Ramona Harper’s brother, is charged with second-degree murder and remains before the court.

At the time of the killing, Kyle Harper was on bail for multiple firearm offences and was wearing an ankle monitor as a condition of his release.

Harper’s release on bail one month before the killing was opposed by prosecutor Omar Siddiqui, who argued there were no release conditions that could satisfy the Crown’s safety concerns.

Court heard Harper — who was in custody for possession of a loaded sawed-off shotgun — had repeatedly flouted weapon prohibition orders, violated an absolute curfew and tampered with his ankle monitor.

“I don’t know what he could be released on at this point that would at least fill the Crown with any confidence,” Siddiqui said.

Security video showed Harper leaving Roulette’s apartment building shortly after the killing “wearing a GPS ankle monitor and carrying an object that resembled a firearm,” Comack told court Friday, reading from the agreed statement of facts.

Data retrieved from the ankle monitor placed Harper in the general vicinity of the killing.

Ramona Harper was one of two suspects a tenant identified as having seen outside Roulette’s suite just prior to the killing, court heard.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca