Man pleads guilty to murder in abduction

A Winnipeg man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for his part in a fatal kidnapping plot targeting a rival drug dealer.

Sonny Balemba was one of three men charged in the September 2024 killing of 22-year-old Zeyad Shammo.

Balemba and co-accused Robert James Chaykowski, both 26, were arrested days after the killing. Co-accused Chad Jason Dandan, 25, was arrested just last week in Surrey, B.C. on a Canada-wide warrant.

Chaykowski and Dandan are each charged with first-degree murder.

Balemba sat in the prisoner’s box open-mouthed and vacant-eyed as Crown attorney Vanessa Gama outlined his involvement in the killing in an agreed statement of facts.

“It is accepted that there is no evidence that Balemba physically participated in the assaults that caused Shammo’s death,” Gama said.

“The Crown accepts that Balemba is guilty of second-degree murder as a party by way of… common intention,” she said. “Balemba, Chaykowski, Dandan and two other unknown persons formed a common intention to kidnap Shammo and extort Shammo’s drug network for money and drugs.”

Court heard the three co-accused kidnapped Shammo under the direction of two other suspects who remain under investigation by police.

Chaykowski lured Shammo to a Bristol Avenue home Sept. 9 on the pretext Shammo would sell him drugs. Shammo was beaten in the garage and then taken to the basement where Chaykowski continued to beat him.

At some point in the evening, Chaykowski, wearing bloody latex gloves, returned upstairs and “asked for the music to be turned louder to drown out the screaming,” Gama said.

The three co-accused continued to negotiate a ransom for Shammo when, shortly before midnight, they placed him in the trunk of his own Honda Civic and drove to an address on Dubuc Street. There, while still in the trunk, Shammo attempted to make a cellphone call. But Shammo’s cellphone was connected to the vehicle’s Bluetooth system, alerting his kidnappers to the call.

Shammo was removed from the trunk and his cellphone was thrown into a bushy area, where, upon landing on the ground, a crash notification was triggered, resulting in a call to 911, complete with GPS co-ordinates.

Shammo’s kidnappers returned him to the Bristol Avenue home where Dandan twisted his arm until it broke and took pictures of himself as Shammo lay injured and unconscious on the basement floor.

Meanwhile, a fire truck responding to the 911 call arrived at Dubuc Street. After finding nothing awry, emergency responders cleared the scene and left.

Around 4 a.m., another man arrived at Bristol Avenue to drive the kidnappers and Shammo around in the man’s car as the kidnappers continued to negotiate a ransom for Shammo, who was wrapped naked in a shower curtain and placed in the trunk.

As the ransom negotiations floundered, the group returned to Bristol Avenue where the kidnappers pulled Shammo from the trunk and attempted to make him walk into the house.

When Shammo fell to the ground, Chaykowski grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him into the house and basement, causing his head to strike each step along the way.

Sometime before 8:30 a.m., following more negotiations, members of Shammo’s drug network placed a ransom of $900 and a quantity of drugs at Whittier Park.

Balemba and two other men drove to the park to obtain the ransom, but when they returned to Bristol Avenue, found Shammo dead.

Shammo’s roommate called 911 on Sept. 10 to report him missing. He told police he had called Shammo the previous evening and the phone was answered by a man who said: “I got your buddy, figure out how much your buddy is worth.”

Subsequent negotiations were completed using a phone that police later determined was linked to Balemba.

Shammo’s roommate said kidnappers told him after the ransom was paid that Shammo had been dropped off at a McDonald’s restaurant in Brandon. Shammo’s body had not been moved, and remained at the Bristol Avenue home, where police found it Sept. 13.

Shammo suffered eight “penetrating wounds” to his back, “significant” blunt force injuries to his head and extensive bruising “consistent with a hammer.”

An analysis of Balemba’s cellphone revealed several chilling text exchanges as the two sides bargained for Shammo’s release.

“You wanna start changing plans we gonna start chopping off fingers,” one of the kidnappers texted.

“It’s his life you are leaving,” a kidnapper texted during a disagreement over where to leave the ransom. “As long as you can live with that, fine with me… Good luck explaining what happened to his parents.”

Balemba will return to court for sentencing May 25. He remains in custody.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca