Teen should get adult sentence for role in 'sadistic' 2022 Point Douglas killings: prosecutor

WARNING: This story contains graphic details.

A judge is weighing whether a youth sentence is appropriate for a now 18-year-old who went on what prosecutors call a "sadistic" killing spree in 2022 that took three lives in under an hour in Winnipeg's Point Douglas neighbourhood.

The early morning attacks on Aug. 22, 2022, left Danielle Dawn Ballantyne, a 36-year-old woman, dead. Marvin William Felix, a 54-year-old amputee who used a wheelchair, and Troy Baguley, 51, were critically injured in attacks the same morning and later died in hospital.

Two teens, both 15 at the time of the killings, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the deaths of Ballantyne and Felix. The teen whose sentence was being considered Tuesday also pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with Baguley's death.

The other teen was also initially charged with manslaughter, but that charge was later stayed, Crown prosecutors said.

Prosecutors have recommended both teens receive adult sentences, which would mean automatic life sentences on the second-degree murder charges. The maximum youth sentence for second-degree murder is seven years — up to four years in custody, with up to another three years of probation.

In hearings that began Monday, Manitoba Court of King's Bench Justice Gerald Chartier is hearing arguments on whether one of the teens, now 18, should be sentenced as an adult.

Prosecutor Jodi Koffman told the court that the Crown must prove the teen was morally responsible for the killings, and that a seven-year youth sentence is not enough to hold him accountable or to protect society.

Koffman said the teen took part in a "killing spree" that targeted vulnerable people without remorse, attacking them in a "sadistic" manner that involved removing their pants and stomping on their genitals and heads multiple times, before leaving them "exposed and incapacitated."

"These murders were purposeful, intended and desired," Koffman said Tuesday.

The teen has an "unbroken criminal history" both in and out of custody, she said, that began before he turned 12 years old and continued to shortly before his 18th birthday. That history includes multiple assaults, group assaults, weapons-related offences, uttering threats, and spitting on and punching correctional officers, the prosecutor said.

"One would hope that after being charged with three deaths, and claiming to feel bad about it, [he] would stop hurting others violently, and yet this hasn't been the case," said Koffman.

Surveillance footage shows attacks

The teen and his co-accused were reported missing from a Wolseley-area group home the evening before the 2022 attacks, court heard. The teen later admitted that they stole alcohol from a beer vendor and visited drug houses in the hours before the fatal beatings, said Koffman.

Surveillance footage played in court Monday showed the beginning of the attacks at 4:19 a.m., when the teen and his co-accused beat Baguley for about eight minutes before they dragged his body to a Main Street parking lot, between Jarvis and Sutherland avenues.

The beating left Baguley with traumatic brain injury and a total loss of cognitive capacity, court has previously heard. He was removed from life support in March 2023.

Police found Ballantyne lying on the second floor of a Jarvis Avenue apartment building near Main Street around 7 a.m. on the day of the attacks.

The mother of four from Misipawistik Cree Nation sustained injuries to the left side of her head. Broken glass, a backpack and a purse were scattered next to her body near a pool of blood, according to an agreed statement of facts.

Surveillance video later caught the teens as they walked together, with their arms wrapped around each other, less than half an hour after the attacks on Baguley and Ballantyne. The two stumbled upon their final victim: Felix, who was asleep in his wheelchair near the Bell Hotel on Main Street.

The video shows the teen and his co-accused punch and drag Felix to the ground, before the teen removed Felix's pants and the two stomped on his head and genitals multiple times. 

Felix, who was from the northern community of Berens River, was taken to hospital in unstable condition and died on Aug. 26, 2022, from blunt force injury to his head, which fractured his skull, left cheek and jaw.

The teen's co-accused was later seen wearing Felix's pants as they walked down Main Street following the assault. The video also shows the teen assaulting people at random in front of the Main Street Project shelter, including another man in a wheelchair, before fleeing.

Teen diagnosed with ADHD, FASD

On Monday, Sara Spevack — a clinical psychologist who assessed the 18-year-old twice in 2024 — told the court that he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and mild intellectual disability.

He was also found to have an IQ of 72, Spevack said. The threshold for intellectual disability is typically 70, she said.

But Koffman argued that even with the FASD diagnosis, the teen does not suffer any severe cognitive defects, saying he was "calculated" and understood that his "extreme, prolonged and gratuitous" killings were morally wrong.

"An adult sentence is the only way for us to monitor him long-term and to be able to sanction him if he becomes a danger to public safety again," she said.

The hearing is scheduled until Thursday.