Court told accused on trial for mom’s slaying was ‘very loving kid’

A Winnipeg man on trial for allegedly bludgeoning his mother to death when he was 16 “was a very loving kid,” the woman’s then-boyfriend testified Thursday.

“He had what appeared to be a great relationship with his mother,” Lorne Vandersteen told jurors.

“He would basically do things around the house I wish my kids would have done at that age,” he said. “He would clean the house, he would cook dinner, he would do laundry, most of it without asking, without complaint. “He was congenial, amicable, easy to get along with, easy to joke with.”

The Free Press is not naming the 51-year-old victim, as it would identify the accused, who cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The victim was found dead in her bed at her Southdale home on March 26, 2019.

This is the second time the woman’s son has gone to trial for her murder.

Vandersteen said he and the woman were in an on-again, off-again relationship for about 18 months, beginning in the summer of 2017.

Vandersteen, who watched a Jets game with the victim and her son at their home the night before she was found dead, told jurors she had told him early on in their relationship about a male co-worker who had been harassing and threatening her.

“She was scared of him,” said Vandersteen, who worked in the same building as the victim, but for a different employer.

In an opening address to jurors earlier this month, the accused’s lawyer, James Lockyer, said the defence intends to argue it was the co-worker who killed the woman, not her son.

Vandersteen said he saw the man at work but was asked by the victim not to speak to or confront him. Vandersteen said he helped the woman secure a parking spot in a different parking lot to reduce the chances they would cross paths.

Vandersteen said the woman became scared after someone rummaged through her car at home and she found footprints in the snow leading to her backyard.

“I advised her to get a security camera,” he said. “To allay her fears, I said it might have been a meter reader” who left the footprints and someone looking for change who went through her car.

Prosecutors argue the accused is the only person who had the opportunity to kill the victim.

Vandersteen left the victim’s home shortly before 10 p.m. and the two exchanged several text messages, with the victim sending a final text at 1 a.m.

“That’s how we know she was still alive then,” Crown attorney Adam Bergen said in an opening address to jurors earlier this month.

Bergen said the accused left the house with his dog at 9 a.m. and drove around running several errands which were captured on security video.

“We say at this point in time (the victim) was already dead or dying in her bed,” Bergen said.

The teen returned home at 10:37 a.m. and eight minutes later called 911. Police arrived within minutes.

Bergen said a motion-activated security camera across the street captured no one else entering or leaving the victim’s house during the 90 minutes the accused was away.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca