Devil made him do it

A Manitoba man says he was driven by the voice of the devil when he bound and brutalized his common-law wife and sexually assaulted her young daughter during nearly eight hours of terror.

“The devil tried to take my soul, but he couldn’t do it,” the 42-year-old man told a Winnipeg court Monday. “Jesus came and saved my life. I wish I could have turned to the Lord sooner.”

The man previously pleaded guilty to one count each of aggravated assault, sexual interference and forcible confinement. The Free Press is not naming the offender or the First Nation on which the crimes occurred so as not to identify his victims.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Vic Toews sentenced the man Monday to 30 years in prison, the same sentence recommended by lawyers for the Crown and defence.

Quoting submissions from the Crown, Toews called the man’s actions “brutal, savage and cruel,” and expressed doubts of any prospects for rehabilitation.

“I can’t overestimate the suffering of the victims,” he said. “There is a very good chance (he) will never see the outside of a prison.”

According to an agreed statement of facts previously provided to court, the offender had been drinking home brew on Dec. 10, 2023, when around midnight he got into a heated argument with his common-law wife about their relationship.

He knocked the woman to the floor and beat her, saying: “After tonight, none of us are going to be alive.”

Then he gave the woman a choice: be the victim of a murder-suicide, or allow herself to be tied up and watch the man kill himself.

The man used a torn-up bed sheet, shoelaces and string to hog-tie the woman. He continued to beat her until he heard their young daughter waking up in the living room. The man moved the girl to another child’s bedroom and closed the door.

Then he turned his attention to the woman’s young daughter from another relationship, and violently sexually assaulted her.

The girl’s mother, hearing the assault, yelled at the girl to come to her. When she did, the man told the mother “to choose between her or her daughter,” said the agreed statement of facts.

The woman explained to (her daughter): “He is asking me to choose whether to kill me or you. The girl “indicated she did not want to die, and she did not want her mother to die.”

The man told the girl “he was going to choose” and ordered her out of the room, at which point he used a bed sheet to strangle the woman from behind.

When she lost consciousness, the man hog-tied the girl and repeatedly sexually assaulted her.

“The accused was adamant he wanted to commit suicide by the police shooting him,” says the agreed statement of facts.

The man initially refused police demands to leave the house, but after negotiations he agreed to release the three children before surrendering himself to officers.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca