Man faces second-degree murder charge after shooting in RM of Armstrong

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This article was published 19/11/2018 (2824 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Teulon-area man has been charged with second-degree murder, after a 20-year-old woman was fatally shot late Saturday night on a rural Manitoba road.

Jesse Paluk, 23, remains in custody and is set to appear in Winnipeg court Tuesday.

Paluk faces an additional seven counts each of attempted murder and discharging a firearm with intent to wound, and three counts each of reckless discharge of a firearm and assault with a weapon.

Hailey Dugay was a passenger in her boyfriend’s truck when the vehicle was struck by gunfire Saturday night on Provincial Road 231 in the Rural Municipality of Armstrong.

“You couldn’t ask for a better person,” said Jerry Harasymko, the father of Dugay’s boyfriend, Branden Harasymko. “She was so nice, warm-hearted and caring.”

Dugay lived with the Harasymko family for the past four years and worked at a daycare centre.

“She loved the kids,” Harasymko said Monday. “She was a part of our family. Just the night before, my wife was helping put extensions in her hair. It’s tough.”

RCMP said the shooting was preceded by a fight earlier in the evening at a Fraserwood bar that ended with all patrons being ejected from the establishment. Fraserwood is located roughly 80 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

Dugay and Branden Harasymko were at the bar that night, but had no involvement in the dispute, Jerry Harasymko said.

The couple and two friends were later driving together to a house party outside of town around 11:20 p.m., when they came upon a man holding a rifle, standing on the road beside a car, Harasymko said.

“Branden stopped and said, ‘Is there a problem here?’ and (the man) told him to keep on driving,” Harasymko said. “He did, and all of a sudden, he heard shots being fired.”

Dugay, seated in the rear passenger seat, was shot.

Branden Harasymko called 911 and was told to drive to Teulon Collegiate, 50 km north of Winnipeg, where they would be met by the STARS air ambulance, his father said.

Medical personnel treated Dugay and transported her to hospital, but she succumbed to her injuries.

Police said the suspect also fired at two other vehicles belonging to bar patrons around the time Dugay was shot. No one else was injured.

Police, with assistance from an RCMP canine unit and the Winnipeg Police Service’s Air-1 helicopter, later arrested a suspect in a field near Gimli.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca