Suspect in Lac du Bonnet killing lost his mother in 2011 to violent attack that remains unsolved

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This article was published 03/10/2017 (2543 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The man charged in connection with the slaying of a 19-year-old woman Tuesday in Lac du Bonnet is no stranger to violent death.

Jordan Belyk, 20, who is charged with manslaughter in the death of Brittany Bung, lost his mother to homicide in 2011.

Cara Lynn Hiebert, a 31-year-old mother of four, was found badly beaten in the basement of her Winnipeg home July 19, 2011. Her homicide was never solved.

“I was in disbelief and devastated, it crushed my world,” Belyk, her oldest child, told the Free Press in an interview earlier this year. Belyk was 14 when his mother was killed. He said his life has not been easy since.

“Finding out that I lost the woman who gave me life made my heart drop to my stomach,” he said at the time. The way he lost his mom sent him down the wrong path, he said and eventually led to him seeking help to cope with the loss.

“It made me angry and I turned to substance abuse and had to go to counselling,” Belyk said. “It affected everybody that was in her life,”

Belyk said he spent many days and nights thinking about the fact there are people out there that know what happened to his mom when she was killed inside her home.

“It keeps me up at night knowing there is no justice served and how people know she was a mother of four and still haven’t come forward,” he said. “I just pray and put my faith in God that one day we will have all the answers.”

Winnipeg police said the homicide investigation into his mother’s death is “active and open.” 

On Wednesday, RCMP announced they’d charged Belyk with manslaughter in connection with a roadside death on the edge of Lac du Bonnet, some 90 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. However, the Mounties would not name the victim.

The young woman was identified by several area residents as Brittany Bung of Pointe du Bois.

Police said a woman called 911 shortly after 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, and was in need of emergency assistance.

The RCMP said officers responded immediately to the scene — a car stopped on Provincial Road 502 — where a woman was suffering from life-threatening injuries. She was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Those who live close to the scene said the woman was stabbed in the neck.

Belyk was arrested in the area shortly afterward, RCMP said in a news release, adding the investigation continues and police remain on scene.

Bung’s family has asked they be allowed to grieve privately.

Several area residents said they believed the suspect had moved to Lac du Bonnet a couple of months ago.

According to a witness, the victim encountered the suspect at about 6:30 a.m. inside a local Petro-Canada convenience store.

The barefoot and shirtless man had raced inside moments earlier. “You could tell he was on something,” a witness said. “He was just wandering around the store.”

A young woman entered, bought coffee and left, and the suspect followed, a witness said. “He jumped in her car and pulled the seat right down and said, ‘Let’s get the eff out of here.'”

Gary Nadolsky, who lives nearby on Edward Crescent, told the Free Press he encountered a man in his yard at about 6:45 a.m., when he was about to drive his son to catch the school bus.

Nadolsky said he saw a man “come out of the shadows,” wearing nothing but pants. “This guy was in my yard. I thought he came from the (Winnipeg River) because he was soaking wet and wearing no shirt and it was pretty cold out. We kind of backed off and I told my son to come in the house.”

The man then ran along Edward Crescent in the ditch towards Provincial Road 502 where a car was parked, Nadolsky said. “He looked very dishevelled and out of it.”

Nadolsky and his son got in their car and as they drove by the parked vehicle, Nadolsky saw the passenger door was open and the man was outside trying to make a call on a cellphone. A young woman was slumped on the ground outside the passenger door, he said.

“She had apparent wounds to her face and neck” and there was blood everywhere, Nadolsky said.

The suspect reportedly fled the scene when an ambulance arrived and was arrested by RCMP shortly after in nearby Halliday Park.

Kathy Trask, whose house is just a few metres away from the scene, told the Free Press the woman “was stabbed in the neck and she died.”

Another area resident said he saw police officers holding a man on the ground outside the local heritage museum in Halliday Park near the barricaded highway section, at about 7:30 a.m.