Obsessed stalker who shot, killed young woman at bus stop in 1993 dies behind bars at age 74

A Winnipeg man who stalked a woman for several years before shooting her dead in the street in 1993 has died in Stony Mountain prison.

On Monday, 74-year-old Ronald Edd Bell died of apparent natural causes at the federal prison just north of Winnipeg, the Correctional Service of Canada said.

Bell had been in prison since May 30, 1994, when he was given a life sentence with no chance of parole for 18 years for killing Terry-Lyn Babb, 25, on Jan. 21, 1993.

Bell walked up behind an unsuspecting Babb, who was waiting at a bus stop at Sherbrook Street and Wolseley Avenue, and shot her in the head with a pistol in front of horrified witnesses, says the Free Press report of his sentencing hearing.

“Not only was this murder, but this was an execution, pure and simple,” said then-Associate Chief Justice Jeffrey Oliphant of the Court of Queen’s Bench at Bell’s sentencing.

“Unless significant progress is made, you should be kept locked up forever to protect society… I have no sympathy or mercy for you.”

In the summer of 1990, Babb had been a patient at Misericordia Hospital, where Bell worked as a licensed practical nurse.

Bell became an attentive friend to Babb, buying her art supplies, but his interest in her soon turned into a possessive infatuation, a Free Press report from the time said.

Bell followed her for months, recording her movements in a diary and taking photographs of her.

Babb reported him to police in March 1991 and Bell was issued a summons, but the matter was remanded until May 1992, according to a Manitoba Law Review Commission report on stalking.

In the interim, and despite a peace bond agreement Bell had agreed to in May 1991, he continued to harass Babb.

She made more complaints to police, telling them she feared for her safety as Bell continued to follow her and began to threaten her. He was served with another summons but did not show up to the hearing, the commission report says.

When the matters were heard in May 1992, Bell agreed not to contact Babb for a year. That same year, in August, Bell’s application to carry a restricted weapon was approved by officials and he registered a gun in November 1992, the commission report said.

The deranged stalker killed Babb three months later.

He was originally charged with first-degree murder, but admitted to second-degree murder in a plea bargain.

His lawyer argued at trial that Bell was intending to kill himself, though the judge who sentenced him rejected the notion that it was either an accident or attempted suicide. His lawyer also said Bell suffered from depression and personality disorders that psychiatrists had failed to help him with over the years.

In the wake of Babb’s slaying, and another Manitoba killing by a stalker, the federal government added the charge of criminal harassment to the Criminal Code in 1993.

The province also took measures to better scrutinize applications for firearms acquisition after Babb’s slaying. Canadian firearms law has since been drastically overhauled.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca