Woman pleads guilty to beating teens, injecting them with drugs

Two teens who thought they found temporary harbour in a stranger’s apartment after they missed their late-night bus home were instead terrorized, beaten and injected with methamphetamine against their will, a court has heard.

Simone Thomas, 22, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count each of forcible confinement, aggravated assault and administering a noxious substance with intent to endanger or cause bodily harm to a person.

Details of the bizarre, Feb. 17, 2025, incident were included in an agreed statement of facts read out in court.

Court heard a male and female victim, both 15, had been drinking cans of beer outside the New West Hotel around 1 a.m. when they realized they had missed their bus home. Thomas approached the teens and offered them a place to “hang out” while they waited for the next bus.

The teens and Thomas took a cab to a Euclid Avenue apartment where they continued to drink with Thomas, along with two unidentified men and one unidentified woman.

About 30 minutes later, the girl began texting family members, trying to find a way home, and was told by her younger sister a friend had previously been driven home by police in similar circumstances.

The girl told the boy they could walk to Main Street and call for a ride, a comment Thomas overheard and misinterpreted to mean the girl intended to call police to the apartment.

“Thomas would not believe (the girl) when she tried to explain and stated: ‘Too late, you f——d up, you’re dumb for calling the police,’” Crown attorney Amy Wood told court, reading from the agreed statement of facts.

“At that point, the four accused, including Thomas, began to attack both victims,” Wood said.

Thomas and the three other apartment occupants stomped the teens about the head and body, beat them with a belt and metal bicycle lock and threatened the male victim with a machete before forcing each of them to provide their addresses, which were then written on a wall.

Thomas injected “an unknown substance” into the arm of each teen after which their limbs were bound with tape and they were beaten again.

Sometime later, the attackers cut off the male teen’s restraints, blindfolded him and escorted him out of the building.

“He next recalled being in the middle of the road and seeing the police coming to ask him if he was all right,” Wood said. “He was screaming and crying.”

Police took the boy to Children’s Hospital “due to his erratic and bizarre behaviour and clear state of intoxication.”

Around the same time the boy was released from the apartment, Thomas took the female victim to the washroom and told her to “clean herself up,” before providing her clean clothes to wear. The girl was blindfolded and Thomas led her outside to a nearby park.

The girl made her way to Main Street where she flagged down a man on a bike, who took her to Siloam Mission.

Mission staff called police and the girl was taken to hospital, where it was found she had “an abnormally high level” of methamphetamine in her system.

An examination of the male victim showed he was suffering side-effects of meth consumption, including blurred vision, dizziness and gross intoxication, said the agreed statement of facts.

The girl’s cellphone was stolen during the attack. While in hospital, a message was sent to the male victim from the girl’s Snapchat account reading: “Remember what was said, stay quiet, don’t go telling anyone shit. Keep ur word.”

Both victims suffered extensive bruising, bone fractures and lacerations to the head.

Thomas was arrested three weeks later following a Spence Street home invasion where Thomas, in the company of two male and one female co-accused, attacked a man and woman with a machete and a knife.

Witnesses a short time later pointed police to a home across the street where Thomas was taken into custody with blood still on her hands and wearing bloody clothes.

Thomas remains in custody and will be sentenced at a later date following the completion of a court-ordered pre-sentence report.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca