‘On a violent path’: man who set fire to townhouse gets 10 years for manslaughter

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This article was published 11/08/2025 (370 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Izak Catlen Sararas had not been taking his schizophrenia medication for a week when he set a $5-million townhouse fire that killed a 30-year-old Winnipeg woman, but he bears full responsibility for his actions, a judge said Monday.

“You are aware that medication for schizophrenia can balance your behaviours,” provincial court Judge Margaret Wiebe told the 28-year-old Alberta man before sentencing him to 10 years in prison.

“You chose not to take that medication,” Wiebe said. “The responsibility for your actions… are yours alone.”

Sararas pleaded guilty last month to manslaughter in the June 2024 death of Nirmaljeet Kaur.

Kaur was taken off life-support four days after the blaze at the two-storey, 12-unit townhouse complex on Keewatin Street.

Court heard Sararas had attempted to rob a man of a cigarette outside a nearby service station shortly after 3 a.m. when a short time later he set fire to a couch sitting outside a ground level townhouse suite.

The fire quickly spread upward, engulfing a second-storey suite where Kaur was living with her 21-year-old brother-in-law.

Kaur called 911, reporting they were trapped in their suite. During the call, Kaur stopped talking, suggesting she had lost consciousness, court previously heard.

Firefighters extricated Kaur and her brother-in-law from the building and they were taken to hospital suffering from severe smoke inhalation. The man, who also suffered second-degree burns and injuries to his eyes, spent three days in hospital.

Damages to the townhouse complex were estimated at the time to be approximately $5 million.

“You were set on a violent path the night of this incident. Your actions have caused excruciating pain and suffering to the family of Ms. Kaur.”– Provincial court Judge Margaret Wiebe

Later that day, a police officer spotted Sararas at Health Sciences Centre, where he had been taken following an unrelated complaint he had been causing a disturbance. Sararas was taken into custody and charged with arson.

Sararas was charged with manslaughter after Kaur died.

In a subsequent police statement, Sararas said he had come to Winnipeg from Alberta a month earlier and had spent several days prior to the fire “wandering around” after going off his medication.

Sararas told police he didn’t set the fire to hurt anyone, “rather, he hoped the world would burn down, ‘because we are all losers.” Sararas told police he wanted to “give people’s head a shake.”

Court heard Sararas has struggled with addictions and homelessness for much of his adult life.

Crown and defence lawyers jointly recommended the 10-year prison term. Wiebe said Sararas’s “reckless, thoughtless behaviour” demanded a “serious denunciatory sentence.”

“You were set on a violent path the night of this incident,” Wiebe said. “Your actions have caused excruciating pain and suffering to the family of Ms. Kaur.”

Sararas received credit for time in custody, reducing his remaining sentence to just over 8½ years.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca