Man sentenced to 15 years for 'entirely preventable' fatal 2022 Christmas Day apartment fire in Winnipeg

A cognitively challenged man who admitted to starting an apartment fire that killed two people on Christmas morning almost two years ago broke down crying in the prisoner's box Monday as the victims' families told him through tears of their own how his actions changed their lives forever.

Ethan Powderhorn, 28, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, based on a joint recommendation from Crown and defence lawyers, after pleading guilty last month to manslaughter and arson for starting the deadly fire at the Warwick Apartments on Winnipeg's Qu'Appelle Avenue in the early morning hours of Dec. 25, 2022.

The fire hospitalized six people and led to the deaths of two — Roger Glen Doblej, 63, and Suzanne Helen McCooeye, 70 — who court heard opened their door to escape but immediately collapsed. They were found unresponsive in the hallway and later died from smoke inhalation.

Court heard Powderhorn lives with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and a brain injury, and had a troubled childhood that included abuse, a mother who struggled with substance use and apprehensions by Child and Family Services. By the age of five, he had started becoming involved in illegal activity, including on one occasion being found among a group of kids going into vacant homes and trying to start fires, defence lawyer Scott Newman said.

Barbara Doblej, whose brother was one of the people who died in the 2022 apartment fire, said the impact of his death will "forever be etched" in her family's memories. She told court her brother was a caring man who donated what little he had to the Children's Hospital, before turning to address Powderhorn directly.

"Ethan, you are a young man who is loved, I'm sure, by your mom, by your family. And they want you to get some healing too, to move forward in your life," she said, her voice quivering with emotion as Powderhorn looked down at his lap in tears.

"Moving forward will be difficult for you too, I'm sure — as you have to live with this burden, just like us. I want peace for you too."

Marianne Goebel told court how she shared some of her most fundamental values with her grandmother — the other victim of the fatal fire, whom she had recently reconnected with — "including an innate belief in human progress, compassion and forgiveness."

"Losing her to an act of negligence and harm has shaken this foundation," Goebel said, before addressing Powderhorn herself. "I'm not able to talk about forgiveness at this time, but I wish you safety and I wish you peace and I wish you healing."

Powderhorn was described as someone who is unable to care for himself or make day-to-day decisions, and was once assessed as having a full scale IQ of 72 — just above the cutoff of 70 to be considered someone with an intellectual disability, court heard.

Lawyer Newman said Powderhorn's ability to foresee the consequences of his actions is "an area of significant concern for him," noting that in December 2020 he overdosed a total of 11 times — and couldn't see that "based on the last overdose, that doing something similar is going to cause another overdose."

"In my view, these offences were entirely preventable with appropriate levels of support and supervision for Mr. Powderhorn. This didn't need to happen, and I think that's the failure here," Newman said, noting a professional who previously assessed Powderhorn warned of what the consequences might be if he didn't get the help he needed.

"I'm going to be back in this court at least two more times in the next 12 months repeating these submissions that I'm going to give you about Mr. Powderhorn for different individuals. And to me, the most shameful thing about this is we as a society are refusing to protect people who are vulnerable, both as accused and as potential victims."

'Never wanted this to happen'

In a statement read on his behalf by his lawyer, Powderhorn apologized for what he did and said he never wanted to hurt anyone. 

"I wasn't thinking properly — I know that now. I know you miss your loved ones that died from the fire that I caused. I never wanted that to happen," Newman read from the statement, as Powderhorn listened with a pained expression.

The statement said Powderhorn also hopes to take courses and addictions programs while in custody.

Prosecutor Nicole Roch told Court of King's Bench Justice Candace Grammond the Crown's perspective is that Powderhorn's story about how he was using a propane torch on his mattress to smoke a street drug called down and knocked the torch onto his mattress when he passed out "should be approached with some skepticism," given that none of the three torches in his suite nor any drug paraphernalia were found in his bedroom.

"Regardless of what he was doing, the outcome was tragic," Roch said. "Whether he lit the mattress on fire by knocking the torch over or by deliberately holding it to the mattress … it makes no difference at this point. He was reckless using it."

Justice Grammond described the events in the case as "tragic from beginning to end," agreeing to the jointly recommended sentence.

"Reading Mr. Powderhorn's file in anticipation of this hearing, it's one of the worst ones I've seen," she said. "He never should have been living in that apartment by himself. He shouldn't have been living anywhere by himself without the supports that he needed."

Powderhorn's sentence includes a four-year term for the arson charge he admitted to, which is being served at the same time as his longer manslaughter sentence.