Suspect in fatal 2017 Marion Street crash charged, but now behind bars for other offences

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This article was published 01/04/2019 (2717 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The suspect in a fatal hit-and-run crash that killed a mother and grandmother just days before her 62nd birthday was charged more than a year ago with causing her death.

Winnipeg police confirmed Monday that Gater Albert Browne, 40, was charged on Dec. 1, 2017 — less than four months after the August collision — with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and failing to stop at an accident involving death, as well as two counts of possessing stolen property worth more than $5,000 and two counts of possessing stolen property worth less than $5,000.

Winnipeg police spokesman Const. Rob Carver said the family of Marlene Eusanio was told at the time the suspect had been charged, but police didn’t tell the public because Browne was facing other charges in Saskatchewan which “took precedence at the time.”

“(Browne) is somewhere out west dealing with what he is dealing with,” Carver said. “They’ll probably move the charges out there. He was here just long enough to take someone’s life.”

Eusanio was getting out of her vehicle, parked on Marion Street at about 11:45 a.m. on Aug. 3, 2017, when she was struck by someone driving a stolen truck and trailer.

The driver fled and police recovered the abandoned vehicle and trailer in St. Boniface the next day.

“The driver of this vehicle would know and have known that they hit somebody, police spokesman Const. Jay Murray said at the time.

“This wasn’t a case of somebody getting hit by a trailer and (the) driver not knowing about it. We believe that this driver fully knows what happened.”

Eusanio was described by her family as “a caring soul and kind and giving friend” who was survived by her husband of 18 years, Jean-Louis, two sons and four grandchildren.

Meanwhile, last year Browne filed an appeal on his conviction for his role in offences committed in Regina not long after the Winnipeg hit-and-run.

A Regina provincial court judge found Browne guilty last July of the 13 firearms, property and fraud-related offences he committed in August 2017 and sentenced him to 5 1/2 years in prison; he was given credit for time spent in remand.

Court was told that Browne, with his common-law partner, drove a stolen Cadillac Escalade towing a stolen Harley Davidson trailer filled with stolen goods to Regina after leaving Winnipeg.

After pulling over in Regina, Browne met a friend and together they defrauded a company there of about $3,200 worth of goods, in addition to committing other offences.

Police later found the goods in a padlocked trailer inside a garage, next to an SKS rifle with ammunition and two magazines.

“The mere presence of firearms like this in the community pose a real danger,” Judge James Rybchuk said during Browne’s sentencing.

“Something must be done to stem the flow of illegal guns from larger cities and provinces to smaller ones like our own. These types of firearm offences can and must be addressed by the imposition of stiff and weighty sentences.”

Court was told Browne was already on two lifetime firearms prohibitions at the time of his arrest.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca