Fifteen-year prison term for killing group home manager

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This article was published 20/02/2021 (1870 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SEEMINGLY intent on confronting a young man he believed had brutalized his sister, Kane Moar “showed no appreciable or discernible hesitation” in attacking anybody who stood in his way, a judge said Friday.

Moar fatally stabbed group home manager Ricardo Hibi, 34, while trying to gain entry to a McGee Street group home on Dec. 17, 2018.

Moar, 23, was convicted of second-degree murder following a trial last fall.

“I am satisfied that whatever positive steps Mr. Moar may have taken while in custody (awaiting trial)… he remains a high risk to reoffend violently,” said Queen’s Bench Justice Vic Toews before sentencing Moar to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years.

Prosecutors had urged Toews to set Moar’s period of parole ineligibility at 18 years, arguing he has a disturbing history of violent attacks on strangers.

In a video police statement played for jurors, Moar’s sister, Trinity Moar, told investigators Moar showed up at the door of her Toronto Street home on the afternoon of the killing. He had blood on his hands and a knife in his pocket, she said.

He told her he had “done something f—ing crazy” and “messed up” her boyfriend’s “Asian uncle,” Trinity Moar said.

Court was told Trinity Moar’s boyfriend at the time, also a witness at the trial, lived at Hibi’s group home and had a history of violence.

Defence lawyer Evan Roitenberg, who recommended Moar be allowed to apply for parole after serving 10 years of his sentence, argued Moar, “in an intoxicated and drug-addled state,” went to the group home looking to confront his sister’s boyfriend, but was instead met by Hibi.

Court was told Moar, like many Indigenous offenders, had an upbringing marked by violence, substance abuse, gang involvement and a family history connected to residential schools.

Toews said were it not for those factors and Moar’s age, he would have raised his period of parole ineligibility closer to the 18 years recommended by the Crown.

Friends and family described Hibi at a sentencing hearing last month as a teacher and mentor who wanted to give back to his community.

“He did the work that our community so desperately needed,” friend Agnes Piotrowski told court.

“He was my better half and the one who believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself,” said fiancée Candace Woloshyn.

Moar had been released from Stony Mountain Institution just two months before Hibi’s death — and just two months after Moar was involved in the killing of another inmate.

Moar was granted statutory release after serving two-thirds of his sentence for assaulting a man with a hatchet, despite the fact Parole Board of Canada officials had been provided notice he was facing imminent arrest in the beating death of 25-year-old Adam Monias.

Moar and two other inmates pleaded guilty to assault in the August 2018 attack, and were sentenced in December 2019 to 18 months of custody.

The three co-accused were originally charged with second-degree murder, but in a plea bargain, they agreed to admit to the lesser offence. Court was told identification would have been an issue had the case gone to trial.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca