Convicted murderer pleads guilty to grisly assault

In times of trouble, Maxim Garneau helped his friend C.P. find a place to live and, on occasion, even looked after her kids.

But when the now-convicted killer and street gangster came to believe the woman had been stealing from him, he cut off her thumb — a warning to all who would dare to cross him, a court has heard.

“The drug underworld is a dangerous one,” Crown attorney Chantal Boutin told provincial court Judge Dale Schille at a sentencing hearing last week. “Power is gained and kept through acts of violence.… Violence is a means to an end for Mr. Garneau.”

Garneau, 28, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Boutin conceded the sentence — jointly recommended by the Crown and defence — is “almost academic,” as it will not result in any additional custody for Garneau, who later this month will be sentenced to mandatory life in prison for three unrelated murders.

“The main factor here is the facts being before the parole board, the parole board having knowledge of what happened here,” Boutin said. “The sentence… needs to reflect society’s condemnation.”

Garneau, who court heard often supplied C.P. with drugs, believed the woman had stolen from him when, in December 2023, he enlisted a co-accused, Alexander Doyle, to take her to a College Avenue apartment building known as a hangout for the Bloods street gang.

The woman was taken to the building’s basement, where in the presence of Garneau, Doyle and several others, she was given a gruesome choice.

“Mr. Garneau had her select for herself one of the digits on her hand that he would take from her and to teach others a lesson what would happen if they stole from him,” Boutin said. “An odd decision, to say the least, she chose her dominant thumb on her right hand.”

Garneau first used a saw to sever the woman’s thumb, but when that “proved ineffective” he asked one of the other men present for a pair of tin snips.

“While Mr. Doyle held her mouth so she could not scream, Mr. Garneau snipped her thumb off,” Boutin said.

Garneau took the woman back upstairs to his suite where, “because they were two people who cared for one another prior to this happening,” Garneau tended to her wound, Boutin said.

The woman knew Garneau had recently killed someone and was too scared to report the assault to police or seek medical attention. Days later she woke up in hospital after her mother found her suffering a drug overdose.

“It was only then that doctors discovered her thumb was missing,” Boutin said.

Garneau was arrested for murder in April 2024, after which the woman felt safe enough to report the assault to police, Boutin said.

Garneau has been diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, been entrenched in gangs and the drug trade since he was a pre-teen and, in the years since, has been shot three times, court was told.

“Unfortunately, this world that he lived in was at times brutish, nasty and short… and he is now going to spend the rest of his life pretty much in jail,” said defence lawyer Tony Kavanagh.

Evidence issues in the case of co-accused Doyle ended with him agreeing Wednesday to a one-year peace bond requiring he have no contact with the victim.

Garneau will return to court May 28 for sentencing in the second-degree murders of Daniel Raymond Garvey-Rodriquez, 25, Robert Clayton Smith, 35, and Edgar Allan Bear, 56.

The minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. Courts can order that sentenced offenders not be eligible for parole for up to 25 years.

Garneau’s assault sentence and murder sentences will be served concurrent to each other.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca