Police lay charge in Sherbrook Street killing; victim’s name released

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This article was published 07/06/2019 (2027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police have charged a man with the stabbing death of a 51-year-old man on Sherbrook Street Friday night.

Police identified the victim as Robert Christian Donaldson.

In a release issued Sunday, police said a 34-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder and two counts of assault with a weapon. Rodney Byron Williams was detained in custody.

The slaying is the city’s 22nd homicide of 2019; Winnipeg has tied last year’s homicide total and summer hasn’t even started.

The victim was stabbed in the upper body around 8:45 p.m. at Sherbrook Street and Sara Avenue. He later died. Police had responded to a report of a fight involving several males at the intersection of Sherbrook and Sara Avenue. 

Initially, police asked the driver of a white SUV who had stopped in the area to help victims, to come forward. Sunday morning, police said investigators had located the driver. They asked for any other witnesses to call police at 204-986-6219 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-8477.

Winnipeg Police Service Const. Rob Carver said Friday’s homicide, and the June 2 killing of 32-year-old lawyer Justin Silicz during a fight with a group of unidentified men on Arlington Street in the early hours are “disturbing” because there was no apparent connection between any of the people involved in either homicide.

“The last two homicides appear to be absolutely random attacks where the victim and the assailant didn’t know each other, didn’t have any sort of interaction where anyone can make any sense as to why there was an assault, let alone (one) ending in a murder. In the last couple (of homicides), I think that’s very disturbing, for anyone looking at these, to think that they’re just random,” Carver said.

He said homicides often involve people who know each other or are in the same location for a reason.

“But the last couple aren’t like that at all. We haven’t named this (Sherbrook) victim. But Justin Silicz was really front and centre in terms of shocking in its purely random violent nature,” said Carver.

Police held a press conference on Friday with members of Silicz’s family present who asked for the public’s help in solving their loved one’s murder ,asking anyone involved to step forward.

In connection with the stabbing death Friday on Sherbrook Street, a 34-year-old man has been arrested but not yet charged; police were called to respond to a report of a fight.

“That’s why we got called, but in fact, it wasn’t a fight. It was a number of males outside who were all, effectively, in the area for one reason or another, being challenged by and facing the aggression of a guy with a knife,” Carver said.

Three killings during the last weekend in May were followed by two homicides last weekend. On Wednesday, Winnipeg police announced the fire at 536 Manitoba Ave., which claimed the life of 63-year-old Hubert Wilson McKay, has become a homicide investigation.

If the current pace of extreme violence continues, the city’s homicide total this year could surpass the worst year in recent memory. In 2011, 41 people were slain in Winnipeg.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca