Accused drove victim to rail yard, set car on fire: police

A man who was found dead in his burned-out vehicle near the Canadian Pacific Kansas City rail yard last week was the victim of a homicide.

A passerby saw the vehicle burning on the 600 block of Jarvis Avenue, near McGregor Street, just before 2 p.m. on March 13 and called 911, the Winnipeg Police Service said on Thursday. The vehicle appeared to have been intentionally lit on fire.

“Obviously, it’s a very public area, so people had witnessed this and had called it in to police,” said police spokesman Const. Claude Chancy. “Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service arrived, put out the fire, and of course, then we were told.”

Police identified the victim as 57-year-old Vincent Morrissette, who was the owner of the vehicle, Chancy said.

Homicide detectives believe a man got into what police called an “altercation” with the victim on the 200 block of Salter Street, hours earlier.

The incident on Salter Street occurred outside, said Chancy. The victim and suspect aren’t believed to have known each other.

The suspect is alleged to have driven Morrissette, who was either injured or dead, in his own vehicle to Jarvis Avenue, and setting it on fire.

Detectives arrested 32-year-old Fabian Gerald Michelle on Salter Street Sunday and have charged him with second-degree murder. He remains in custody.

Michelle has an extensive criminal history in Manitoba, with convictions dating back to 2013 when he was found guilty of multiple offences, including three counts of discharging a firearm with intent, court records show.

Crown prosecutor Rowan Greger described Michelle’s criminal record as six pages long, at a hearing in December in which Michelle pleaded guilty to breaching the conditions of his probation order.

He had been ordered to attend, participate and complete treatment for his meth addiction as part of a sentence of two years of probation, issued in June. Michelle twice absconded from the Behavioural Health Foundation in St. Norbert and his probation officer reported him the second time he left the facility.

He was admitted to the facility on Dec. 10, but left five days later. Michelle told court that other residents of the drug-treatment facility had wrongly accused him of stealing a knife from the kitchen and told him to leave.

Michelle, who first got involved with street gangs when he was seven or eight while growing up in the North End, was being supervised by provincial probation services’ criminal organization and high-risk offender unit at the time.

He told court in December that he had been trying to get off methamphetamine, but said the drug was available “everywhere” and it was difficult to shake.

He was given time served for the breach.

The probation order stems from June 2025, when he pleaded guilty to possessing a stolen vehicle, dangerous driving, resisting arrest and two counts of possessing a weapon contrary to a court order, specifically a bullet, from an incident in March 2025.

He stole a Jeep, then evaded police on a dangerous six-minute car chase from Pritchard Avenue, through the North End and onto Main Street. He ran off when police boxed in the vehicle and resisted the officers who caught up with him.

In July 2021, Michelle was given a two-years-less-a-day sentence after he uttered threats and brandished a firearm on a social media livestream.

He served an additional five months in custody after pleading guilty in December 2021 to assault with a weapon and mischief, after he caused a ruckus and threw a phone at a corrections officer who was telling inmates to wear their COVID masks in Milner Ridge jail in April 2020, while awaiting court for the social media incident.

Police are still probing the Salter Street slaying and have asked anyone with information to call homicide detectives at 204-986-6508 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 204-786-8477 (TIPS).

Morrissette’s death marks the 10th killing in Winnipeg this year.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca