Women who viciously beat man to death should be spared from long prison terms: defence

Lawyers for two intellectually vulnerable women, who were arrested in the alcohol-fuelled beating death of a 33-year-old Winnipeg man, urged a judge Wednesday to spare them lengthy prison sentences.

The lawyers said the women had been failed by a system that doomed them to a lifetime of neglect, poverty and abuse.

Cherilyn Ashley Dumas, 22, and Calianna Grace Keeper, 21, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the November 2023 killing of Derek Karl Stevenson.

Keeper has an IQ below 50, has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and had a childhood that was “chaotic, unpredictable and full of abuse,” her lawyer Scott Newman told Court of King’s Bench Justice Chris Martin.

Keeper spent her childhood in foster care and group homes, where her frequent violent outbursts made her a challenge to manage.

On one occasion, a police officer picked her up while she was living on the street, only to be told by child welfare workers there was no emergency placement available for her, Newman said, causing the frustrated officer to exclaim: “This has ‘body floating in a river’ written all over it.”

Keeper had been released from custody on charges of mischief and uttering threats just three days before Stevenson was killed.

Keeper is unable to live independently and should be living in a supervised group home setting, Newman said.

“We as a society have repeatedly failed to meet her needs,” he said. “She never ever should have been out on her own on the offence date… This is not a case where at 21 years of age the only way to protect the community is to warehouse her.”

Prosecutors are seeking a seven-year prison sentence for Keeper and a nine-year sentence for Dumas, who took the more active role in the fatal attack.

Both women were arrested shortly after the killing and have served the equivalent of just over 28 months in custody.

Newman urged Martin to consider a total sentence of just under four years, which would allow Keeper to remain in a provincial jail, with the expectation she would transition to a group home after her release.

Candace Olson, Dumas’s lawyer, dismissed the Crown’s sentencing recommendation as “far too high,” and asked Martin to sentence her client to an additional two years less a day in custody.

“Rehabilitation cannot be overstated in these circumstances,” said Olson, describing Dumas’s background as “horrendous.”

Dumas has an IQ of 70 and a long history of substance abuse. A doctor’s report provided to court says she has been diagnosed with conduct disorder, and has issues with executive functioning, verbal comprehension and impulsiveness.

An agreed statement of facts provided to court says Dumas, Keeper and Stevenson had been drinking heavily at the Austin Street rooming house suite where Dumas lived when she and Stevenson started to fight.

Dumas punched Stevenson and beat him in the head with a frying pan. Keeper admitted she hit Stevenson in the head three times.

Dumas told police that during the beating, she and Keeper passed out on a bed and Stevenson passed out on the floor. Dumas said when she and Keeper woke up, Stevenson was “cold,” and they realized he was dead. An autopsy determined he had bled to death.

Keeper called her social worker and left the suite when she arrived. Dumas continued to drink. When Stevenson’s body started to smell, she left for her mother’s home and told her what had happened. Dumas and her mother returned to the suite and spent an hour cleaning up blood before the mother left.

The woman’s stepfather later called 911 to report a dead body in the suite. Police arrived around 2:30 a.m. and arrested Dumas.

Keeper was arrested a day later.

Prosecutor Jenna Robinson said both offenders have related records for violence when they had been drinking and described the “prolonged beating” inflicted on Stevenson as “much closer to a murder than accident.”

Martin will sentence Dumas and Keeper on June 20.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca