Teen denies killing mother in early police interview

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This article was published 30/05/2022 (843 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg teen accused of killing his mother told police he had nothing to do with her death, a jury heard Monday.

As the first-degree murder trial continues, jurors viewed a 40-minute video interview the then-16-year-old gave to police, hours after his mother’s body was found.

The identity of the accused is protected under a publication ban, therefore the Free Press is also not naming the 51-year-old victim in this case.

On March 26, 2019 — hours after he called 911 to report he’d found his mother bloody and unresponsive in her Winnipeg bedroom — the teen agreed to be interviewed by city police. He was talking to homicide detectives as a witness, and hadn’t yet been arrested or charged.

The teen told Winnipeg Police Service homicide investigators he had no idea why this would happen to his mother, and said “No” through tears when Det. Sgt. Paul Barber asked him if he had anything to do with the crime.

The teen told police he’d been out running errands and returned home that morning to find blood spatter on his mother’s closed bedroom door.

He opened the door, turned on the light, and saw “she was laying there and she had blood all over her,” the teen told investigators.

The 911 operator advised him to remove pillows from the bed to make sure his mother was laying flat, and then tried to talk him through chest compressions, but the teen, sobbing, told police he hadn’t been able to do them.

He said he could tell his mother wasn’t breathing. He told police he didn’t wash his hands after finding her there.

The night before she died, the teen had cooked dinner for his mother and bought her flowers. They watched a Winnipeg Jets game with the woman’s boyfriend, who left later that evening, and then she went to sleep, the teen said.

He sent her several text messages showing “funny dogs.” Later, when he had trouble sleeping, his mother soothed him, the teen told police. She came in “and laid down with me and played with my hair to make me fall asleep,” he said during the interview.

Barber asked the teen to recount what he had done that morning before he discovered the woman’s body. The teen said he woke up early, took the dog to daycare, changed the cabin air filter in his mother’s car, and drove the vehicle to a series of retail locations, including a mall, and Walmart and Canadian Tire stores.

Police reviewed video surveillance footage from each of those locations, as well as from the victim’s home, the jury was told.

The teen said he assumed his mother was still sleeping and he texted her to let her know where he was. She never responded.

The teen also told investigators his mother had been off work due to health issues and had previously submitted a harassment complaint against a co-worker. That was the only person he could think of who might have harmed her, he told police.

During cross-examination, defence lawyer Matt Gould questioned Barber about several aspects of the police investigation, including how long the teen was in police custody before he gave the interview.

Barber testified the teen was not in police custody, because he had not been arrested or detained, and could have asked to leave at any time. He said the teen consented to the interview and declined to have anyone in the room with him.

Gould also asked the WPS officer about the family’s concerns about where the case was heading and information they provided to the police before any arrests were made.

The teen was arrested in July 2019, more than four months after his mother’s death.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca