Only surviving victim of 2023 shooting dies, family hopes for upgraded charge against accused man

The family of the lone survivor from a mass shooting in Winnipeg’s West Broadway neighbourhood is calling for upgraded charges after he died earlier this month.

Shawn Marko, 56, died in hospital on June 1 following complications from his third bout of pneumonia. His sister, Melissa Marko, confirmed her brother’s death on Wednesday.

He had been hospitalized at Health Sciences Centre since Nov. 26, 2023, when he was critically injured alongside four others inside a rooming house on Langside Street during the early morning hours.

“We want justice,” Marko said. “He lasted the 18 months, but he suffered that whole time. He’s dead, just like the rest of them. To me, the charges should be the same. I don’t understand.

“(My brother) and the people that died, no one deserved to go out like that. Nobody deserved what happened to them.”

A justice official told the Free Press Wednesday that a decision on whether to upgrade charges will be made “once all the relevant evidence is received and reviewed.”

Marko said she had been contacted by the Crown Wednesday about a meeting with her family scheduled for July 10 to go over the charges.

Jamie Randy Felix, 34, is currently charged with attempted murder in Marko’s shooting. He also faces four counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Melelek Leseri Lesikel, 29, Dylan Maxwell Lavallee, 41, and sisters Crystal Shannon Beardy, 34, and Stephanie Amanda Beardy, 33.

Felix is scheduled to stand trial in February, according to court records. The charges against Felix have not been tested in court.

Marko underwent 11 surgeries and lost his pancreas, half his stomach and portions of his bowels, spleen and bladder after being shot three times.

“Because of his injuries, only about 20 per cent of the food he ate managed to stay in his system,” Marko said, adding that her brother would have days where he would vomit repeatedly, losing so much weight that doctors warned any more could prove fatal.

“There was something happening with his left side, and one of the bullets went into his spine. There was something definitely wrong with this left side. It’s why he couldn’t walk.”

She said her brother was the only victim not shot in the head that November morning. He had been celebrating his 55th birthday on Nov. 25 with friends.

“He saw and remembered everything,” she said, noting that he gave police a video statement after the shooting. “He pointed police in Felix’s direction. The homicide detective told us that after they caught him.”

Marko wanted to prove his doctors wrong and walk again, and not have to live in a facility for the rest of his life.

His sister spoke to him the night before he died.

“He was gasping for air,” she said. “It was bad. I told him, ‘OK, I don’t think you should be talking on the phone right now. I will be there in the morning.’”

Marko died just after 7 a.m., before she arrived.

“He told me that he wasn’t going to make it this time, his exact words,” she said. “He knew. He knew it wouldn’t be able to fight it this time.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca