Men sentenced for fatal stabbing at Manwin Hotel in 2023

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This article was published 27/06/2025 (438 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Witness problems and uncertainty as to who wielded the killing weapon weakened the criminal case against three Winnipeg men who admitted to a violent slaying in a Main Street hotel in 2023.

On Friday, they received sentences of five years or less in custody.

Matthew Frederick Robert Stevens, Jacoby Turtle and Dylan Bunn pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the November 2023 killing of 36-year-old Lloyd Larson. They were sentenced to five years, four and a half years, and four and a half years in custody, respectively.

Larson was attacked in his room at the Manwin Hotel and died as the result of a single stab wound to the heart.

“We know that each participated in punching and kicking Mr. Larson (and) we know he was attacked with a metal bar and ultimately stabbed with a knife,” Crown attorney Vuk Mitrovic told Court of King’s Bench Justice Vic Toews. “However, we can’t say who wielded these weapons during the attack and we can’t say which knife was used in the attack.”

Larson and a woman were in his second-floor hotel room at about 1 p.m. when Bunn, Turtle and Stevens entered the room and were heard to demand Larson “stop talking shit,” Mitrovic told Toews, reading from an agreed statement of facts. Prior to entering the room, Stevens was captured on security video carrying a large knife.

The three men kicked and punched Larson, who apologized and screamed for them to stop before one of his attackers struck him in the head with a metal bar.

Larson’s female companion fled the room after which one of the men stabbed Larson once in the heart.

Bunn, Turtle and Stevens fled the hotel as Larson stumbled to the street looking for help. Larson was rushed to Health Sciences Centre where he underwent two emergency surgeries before dying early the next morning.

Police seized little in the way of forensic evidence. Had the case gone to trial, prosecutors would have been largely reliant on the evidence of witnesses, Mitrovic said.

“The civilian witnesses were not expected to be co-operative,” Mitrovic said. “None of them attended a preliminary hearing, one died, and two of them refused to provide statements to police.

“It’s these factors that lead the Crown to conclude a guilty plea is a meaningful factor that has to be given appropriate consideration,” he said.

Larson’s sister-in-law described him as a much-loved family member and father who had struggled and didn’t deserve to die in a “cowardly” three-on-one attack.

“He was taken from us in the most brutal and unimaginable way,” said Shaenagh Burgoyne. “In no world is that strong or courageous.”

The sentence handed to Stevens won’t start until he finishes serving a four-year sentence for aggravated assault he received in 2024.

Turtle and Bunn had each served the equivalent of approximately two and a half years of pre-sentence custody as of Friday.

Their lawyers urged Toews to sentence each of them to an additional two years less a day custody, allowing them to remain in a provincial jail for the remainder of their sentence, rather than a federal prison.

Court heard Turtle had no criminal record before the attack and Bunn had never served a prison sentence.

Toews agreed to the recommendation, only if it included an additional three years of supervised probation for each offender.

“I think in the long run there is a longer period of supervision and if they screw up they are back in the bucket,” Toews said. “This is the longest way I can ensure these two individuals are under supervision and community safety is strengthened.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca