‘I am a shell… I know no peace’

A.W. thought she had found love with Machuor Akau.

That was before Akau put a loaded Luger handgun to the 26-year-old woman’s head last November and told her he should “kill her now.”

Akau shot her, shattering her jaw and embedding teeth in the bones of her mouth and leaving her fighting for her life.

Now A.W. wakes up every morning in pain and sees the scars on her face and neck.

“I have to live with the reminder of what happened to me every time I look at myself,” A.W. wrote in a victim impact statement provided to court for Akau’s sentencing hearing Thursday.

The Free Press is not identifying the victim of intimate partner violence.

Once “outgoing, trusting and full of life,” A.W. says she is now crippled by anxiety and fear, unable to trust anyone and haunted by nightmares she cannot tame.

“I feel now as though I am a shell of who I once was,” she said. “I know no peace. There is no escape in sleep, or company or solitude, there is only the fear of not knowing when I could be hurt again.”

Akau, 28, has pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited weapon, pointing a firearm and criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

The shooting was the culmination of an “escalating pattern” of violence Akau inflicted on A.W., Crown attorney Ari Millo told provincial court Judge Sidney Lerner, recommending Akau be sentenced to eight years in prison.

“This was not negligent or even careless use of a firearm — it was the deliberate use of a loaded handgun to intimidate, to dominate and control an intimate partner,” Millo said.

“I have to live with the reminder of what happened to me every time I look at myself.”

According to an agreed statement of facts provided to court, Akau had been drinking and consuming cocaine for several days and was becoming “increasingly paranoid” when, on Nov. 2, he got into an argument with the victim at her mother’s Wellington Crescent apartment and smashed her phone.

Akau became “increasingly angry” and accused A.W. of infidelity. A.W. told Akau to leave and when he refused, she tried to exit the apartment before Akau grabbed her, held her to his chest and said: “If the cops come, I will kill you with me.”

Akau then put the gun to the woman’s cheek, demanded that she admit she had lied and apologize and said: “I should kill you now.”

The gun discharged, with a bullet entering A.W.’s left cheek and exiting near her right ear.

“The next thing the victim remembered was a loud ringing in her ear with Akau repeatedly and frantically apologizing before moving to the bedroom,” Millo said.

Security video at the apartment building showed Akau and A.W. struggling outside the apartment suite door as Akau tried to pull the woman back inside the suite. A.W., “terrified and bleeding profusely,” broke free, knocked on a neighbour’s door and then made her way outside where she flagged down a passing fire truck. The woman wrote down Akau’s name, phone number and make of his automobile and firefighters contacted police.

Akau fled the apartment and drove away in his red Kia.

A.W. was taken to hospital in critical condition. She remained in hospital for more than a month and underwent three surgeries.

“I know no peace. There is no escape in sleep, or company or solitude, there is only the fear of not knowing when I could be hurt again.”

She underwent another reconstructive surgery in May and is expected to have additional surgeries and receive dental implants, Millo said. She remains unable to chew properly, and suffers chronic pain and nerve damage.

After he shot A.W., a woman he would later tell police was “the love of his life,” Akau didn’t call 911 or seek medical assistance for her, leaving her to die while he escaped, Millo said.

“At the moment when compassion, responsibility and humanity mattered the most, Mr. Akau chose self-preservation over the life of the woman he had just shot,” she said.

Police arrested Akau the following day after a witness reported seeing him at a Shoppers Drug Mart near Fermor Road and Beaverhill Boulevard. The witness said he knew Akau through work and had given him a ride, during which Akau told him he accidentally shot his girlfriend.

Akau admits he knew the gun was loaded. Millo said the Crown accepts Akau’s claim he did not think there was a bullet in the chamber and accidentally fired the gun.

Akau told police he disposed of the gun in “a marshy area.”

He said he originally found the gun outside his mother’s apartment building, a claim Millo rejected as “ludicrous.”

Court heard Akau assaulted the woman on at least three prior occasions during their on-again, off-again five-month-long relationship and threatened to kill himself and A.W. if police were called.

“This was not negligent or even careless use of a firearm – it was the deliberate use of a loaded handgun to intimidate, to dominate and control an intimate partner.”

Akau and his family immigrated to Canada from Sudan where, as a child, he witnessed horrific acts of violence, abuse and predatory behaviour, defence lawyer Saul Simmonds told court.

In Winnipeg, Akau excelled at sports and earned a football scholarship to Carleton University in Ottawa.

“If this were a book, at the beginning you would be cheering for Mr. Akau,” Simmonds said.

A knee injury later dashed Akau’s dream of a pro football career. Akau started taking painkillers and later fell into a worsening spiral of drug and alcohol abuse.

Seeking help was not part of Akau’s culture, Simmonds said, referencing a support letter from his mother.

“He didn’t have the skill set to deal with (the end of his sports aspirations),” Simmonds said.

“Here’s a man who seemed to have a positive path in front of him,” and whose descent into substance abuse left him “angry, sullen and depressed,” he said.

In jail, Akau has started taking Bible classes and rehabilitative programming.

“He is embracing all the positive steps he can at this stage,” Simmonds said.

Akau offered a tearful apology as A.W. sat in the court gallery with her family.

“In no way, shape or form do I intend to try and justify my actions,” he said. “I failed you as a friend, as a partner and a human being.”

Lerner will sentence Akau at a later date.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca