Embalming younger brother ‘hardest decision of my life’

Michael Vogiatzakis has spent his career helping grieving families navigate the deaths of their loved ones.

But nothing prepared the longtime funeral director for embalming his 51-year-old brother Kyriakos Vogiatzakis after he died following a prolonged attack outside his Portage Avenue restaurant nearly two and a half years ago.

Michael Vogiatzakis and fellow funeral director Michael MacIvor identified Kyriakos’s body at the Health Sciences Centre morgue and brought him back to Voyage funeral home where Vogiatzakis made “the hardest decision of my life,” he told court at a sentencing hearing Tuesday for his brother’s killer, Curtis Dalebozik.

“Was I going to embalm my little brother? I decided that no matter how hard, that it would break my heart, I wanted to take care of Kyriakos myself alongside MacIvor,” he said.

“Together, we carefully worked on my brother’s broken body, preparing him so that my family… could see Kyriakos one final time with dignity, love, and respect. No brother should ever have to do that.”

“I have stood beside thousands of grieving families over the years, but nothing could prepare me for burying my brother,” Vogiatzakis said.

Kyriakos Vogiatzakis died on Jan. 24, 2024, following a violent confrontation outside the Cork & Flame restaurant at 3106 Portage Ave.

Dalebozik was found guilty after trial of manslaughter. Prosecutors are seeking a 10-year prison sentence, while defence lawyers are urging King’s Bench Justice Sadie Bond to sentence him to no more than four years in custody.

“I have stood beside thousands of grieving families over the years, but nothing could prepare me for burying my brother.”

A fight between Vogiatzakis and Dalebozik that lasted four minutes was captured on security video.

While Vogiatzakis threw the first punch, Dalebozik responded with lethal force, kicking and punching Vogiatzakis when he was incapacitated and no longer posed a threat to him, Bond said when convicting Dalebozik last February.

A forensic pathologist had testified that Vogiatzakis died as the result of multiple blunt force trauma, asphyxia and the “physiological stress of the altercation.”

At the time, Dalebozik lived at a motel immediately west of the Cork & Flame.

Security video played for court showed him outside the restaurant’s west-side entrance shortly before 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 24, 2024, when Vogiatzakis pulled into the parking lot beside him, got out of his vehicle and confronted Dalebozik.

The video, which has no audio, shows Vogiatzakis pointing at Dalebozik and then toward Portage, at which point Dalebozik is seen jogging toward a mobile sign by the roadside. Almost immediately, Dalebozik runs back toward Vogiatzakis, who punches or shoves Dalebozik in the chest.

The men grappled with each other, making their way to the roadway, where Dalebozik punched Vogiatzakis in the head. Vogiatzakis delivered several uppercut punches to Dalebozik’s head and midsection before Dalebozik dragged him to the ground.

The video showed Dalebozik delivering several knee strikes to Vogiatzakis’s midsection before compressing his chest and putting him in a headlock for up to 90 seconds.

Vogiatzakis was no longer moving when Dalebozik got to his feet and kicked him in the head and body four times.

Dalebozik’s actions demand “significant condemnation” by the court, said Crown attorney James Wood.

“The Crown acknowledges the existence of provocation, nevertheless the Crown argues the… prolonged nature of the attack makes the offence closer to the murder end of the manslaughter spectrum than (accident), especially considering the actions of the accused after Mr. Vogiatzakis was no longer moving,” Wood said.

Court heard Dalebozik had a “relatively normal childhood” and maintained steady employment for about 12 years before he started acting “erratically” and began amassing criminal convictions for stealing cars, assaulting police officers and breaching court orders. He was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and substance use disorder.

“For a mother to lose a child in such a devastating way is beyond any words I could ever speak.”

Defence lawyer Steve Brennan provided court with no medical report to suggest Dalebozik’s actions were impacted by his schizophrenia diagnosis.

Brennan argued Dalebozik could not have expected Vogiatzakis to die from the assault.

“He went too far defending himself,” Brennan said. “Was that a result of his mental illness? I’m not making that submission. I’m making the submission that his actions in going too far defending himself resulted not from mental illness, but rather from the provocation he experienced.”

Vogiatzakis struggled for a time finding his way in life, but “found his calling” at the Cork & Flame, his mother Helen Vogiatzakis said in a victim impact statement provided to court.

“He poured his heart and soul into it,” she said. “The people loved him and he loved the people. He knew everyone by name… He would sit at people’s tables and share stories and make them feel welcome.”

While watching security video of the attack played in court “I felt every punch, every hit, every kick as if I was enduring the pain myself,” Helen Vogiatzakis said.

“For a mother to lose a child in such a devastating way is beyond any words I could ever speak,” she said.

Bond will sentence Dalebozik on Thursday.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca