Man charged with killing ex-girlfriend before beating stranger

Homicide detectives have charged a man accused of fatally attacking his former girlfriend at her Manitoba Housing complex early Saturday before randomly assaulting a stranger who happened to be in the vicinity.

Winnipeg Police Service patrol officers were called to the complex on the 600 block of St. Anne’s Road at about 1:15 a.m., where a caller said a woman was being “seriously assaulted,” police said Monday.

Officers who attended the scene found two women outside the complex suffering serious injuries “to their upper bodies,” said police.

Paramedics took Nicole Micheline Fortier, 46, to hospital in critical condition. She died from her injuries.

A 27-year-old woman was transported to hospital in unstable condition and later upgraded to stable.

Officers searched the area with the help of a police dog and the service’s helicopter before they arrested a man on the 500 block of St. Anne’s Road.

Police said Fortier and the arrested man had been involved in a “prior” relationship, but detectives determined the accused did not know the second victim, who was assaulted seemingly at random.

Sonny Besskkaystare, 21, has been charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault. He was detained in custody, police said.

At a sentencing hearing in September last year in provincial court in The Pas, court heard Besskkaystare and others had smashed up the windows of a basement apartment in Flin Flon one night in November 2023.

Besskkaystare briefly went inside the apartment, where a person with whom he had a negative history lived.

He was arrested by RCMP nearby and originally charged with breaking and entering, which he pleaded down to being unlawfully in a dwelling house.

On Dec. 1 that same year, Besskkaystare was heard to be threatening to stab someone and burn down their house in Flin Flon. Mounties found him nearby.

He was originally to be arrested for uttering threats, but was found with a utility knife concealed in his hooded sweatshirt, The Pas court heard last year. He pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon.

On Dec. 31, a panicked woman called RCMP and said that a woman — not Fortier — was being held against her will at a residence by Besskkaystare, her boyfriend, court heard. The caller told the 911 dispatcher she could hear the woman screaming and worried she was being hurt.

Mounties found Besskkaystare at the residence and charged him with breaching a court order, but didn’t find the woman until later. She wouldn’t give a statement to officers.

He was sentenced to 18 months of supervised probation in The Pas on a joint recommendation from his lawyer and the Crown prosecutor.

In a Winnipeg provincial court room in August last year, Besskkaystare pleaded guilty to a court order breach from April 2024 and to possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose earlier in August.

He had been picked up by Winnipeg Police Service guns and gangs officers on patrol for a traffic infraction on a bicycle, but they found a 25-centimetre knife tucked in his pants.

Besskkaystare received a year of probation.

“You can’t walk around with knives, all right?” provincial court Senior Judge Sandra Chapman told Besskkaystare in Winnipeg in August.

“No one really knew her. She kept to herself. But she had four beautiful kids.”

“There’s no reason in the world to have a 10-inch knife, because you pull that out, somebody pulls out a bigger knife, and both of you guys are dead — so no more knives, all right?”

In mid-January 2024, RCMP asked for the public’s help in finding Besskkaystare who, at the time, was wanted for assault, aggravated assault and two counts of failing to comply with court orders.

Mounties announced on social media on Jan. 24 of that year that he had been arrested. Those charges were stayed in a Winnipeg court earlier this year, records show.

Besskkaystare was born in Thompson and grew up in Flin Flon. He’s a member of Lac Brochet First Nation.

Fortier moved into the public housing complex on Ste. Anne’s Road within the last month or two, a neighbour said.

“No one really knew her. She kept to herself. But she had four beautiful kids,” said the neighbour, who has lived in the complex for the past five years. The person did not want to be identified to protect their privacy.

Another neighbour said the surviving victim tried to hide under a chair outside her home, where the accused found and assaulted her before fleeing.

“He ran this way and beat the f—k out of her. It was bad,” said the second neighbour, who also did not want to be identified.

Neighbours said there has been an increase in illegal drugs and other crimes in the area in recent years and police are often in the complex.

Some residents said the property’s new manager has been making efforts to evict tenants causing problems.

“She’s finally cleaned this up, because the last property managers we had were just sitting on their asses doing nothing,” another neighbour said. “But this is just sad.”

— With files from Scott Billeck and Adam Treusch

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca