Drug debt linked to woman’s slaying previously settled: boyfriend testifies

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This article was published 09/01/2019 (2187 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The former boyfriend of a slain Winnipeg woman told a jury he thought the drug debt that allegedly led to her death had already been settled before the shooting and fire at her Aberdeen Avenue home nearly two years ago.

Monte Bull, 32, was dating 29-year-old Jeanenne Fontaine and running a drug-dealing operation out of her home at 457 Aberdeen Ave., where she was shot and left for dead while four separate fires were set within the home.

Three men who showed up at the home just before the shooting were looking for Bull, jurors previously heard. Prosecutors believe a drug deal gone bad was at the root of the violence, but Bull testified Thursday he believed his debt to a dissatisfied customer was “squashed” well before Fontaine’s death.

Bull told the jury he initially refused to testify during the manslaughter trial for Christopher Matthew Brass and Jason Michael Meilleur because he wasn’t at the house when Fontaine was shot. Bull is currently serving a sentence at Stony Mountain institution and was expected to testify Wednesday, but he refused to be taken to court. He appeared in court on Thursday after he was told he could be charged with contempt of court if he didn’t attend as a Crown witness.

“I didn’t see the point because I wasn’t there, at the house,” he said.

Jurors previously heard three men showed up at Fontaine’s home looking for Bull on March 14, 2017. Bull testified he running a trap house there, selling mainly methamphetamine, where people would “come and go.”

Jeanenne Fontaine and her older brother Chuck Fontaine were home that morning, and only Chuck managed to escape. Crown prosecutors believe the three men planned to carry out a robbery that turned deadly after Jeanenne was shot and the house was set on fire. Jurors heard Malcolm Miles Mitchell shot Jeanenne, but Brass and Meilleur have pleaded not guilty to having any involvement in her death.

Bull testified he heard a complaint about fake meth being sold out of 457 Aberdeen a couple of weeks before the shooting. He said someone named Jay called him about the fake drugs, which jurors heard were sold to Jay’s girlfriend by someone working for Bull. Bull testified he told Jay he’d make it right, but sometime later, Jay called him over to a house on Powers Street. Bull said he arrived to find Jay with a gun, seeming irritated. Bull agreed to repay him, supplying him with nine of the 17 points of meth Jay’s girlfriend had previously paid for. When he ran into Jay’s girlfriend later, he testified during cross-examination, she told him not to worry about the rest.

“She told me that it was squashed,” Bull said.

Bull told police Jay pointed the gun at him during their confrontation, but on the witness stand Thursday he told the jury another man had the gun on the table and never picked it up. When asked to describe Jay, Bull appeared reluctant. He said he didn’t know what Jay’s skin colour was because he’d only ever seen him in the dark. He said he didn’t remember talking to police and didn’t confirm his signature when Crown prosecutor Geoffrey Bayly showed him a signed copy of his statement.

He told jurors he ran the drug-dealing operation by pre-approving people who were allowed to come to 457 Aberdeen to buy drugs. He was comfortable with Jay and his girlfriend going to that house, he said during cross-examination. He was also comfortable with Mitchell, he said, admitting under cross-examination that he got high with Mitchell at some point after Jeanenne’s death.

The trial continues Friday before Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Gerald Chartier.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay