Mike on Crime

by Mike McIntyre

  THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 28, 2006

  There was still no sign of Wiebe, more than 24 hours after he bolted into the community. He was on the run. And, family members feared, looking to kill again.

  Wiebe had earlier threatened to escape and murder his stepfather, according to newly released court documents. “My stepfather is a real asshole. Once I get out of here I will go and kill him,” Wiebe once said, according to a report by a review board overseeing his care.

  Meanwhile, Selkirk officials were reviewing whether security should be beefed up for high-risk patients being escorted to appointments or hearings.

  “Anything that’s put in place is better than what appears to be now,” said provincial Tory justice critic Kelvin Goertzen upon hearing of the incident.

  Selkirk Mental Health Centre CEO Ken Nattrass said his staff were following the security guideline for Wiebe as outlined by the review board. “He was not a prisoner. He’s a patient. This is a hospital. It is not a jail,” Nattrass said. “We don’t use restraints. We do not treat ourselves as a security detail.”

  Yet serious concerns had been raised in a February 2005 report issued by the Criminal Code Review Board of Manitoba, which was tasked with supervising the care and custody of Wiebe and others who have been found not criminally responsible for their actions.

  “Clearly Mr. Wiebe requires close supervision due to the unpredictability of his behaviour,” the review board wrote in its decision to keep him locked up and under tight security. “Mr. Wiebe represents a significant threat and is a danger to himself and others.” The board said Wiebe had been resistant to treatment, aggressive with other patients, depressed, suicidal and often exhibiting “childlike acting-out.”

  Leslie Finlay, a juvenile counsellor who had worked with Wiebe, expressed grave concern about his potential for violence: “He has been unpredictable, volatile, defensive and defiant of staff directions and authority and has, on occasion, exhibited behaviour of extreme anger and rage,” she said.

  FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 29, 2006

  They were on high alert. Nervous days had been spent looking over shoulders and peering out windows, sleepless nights had been spent jumping at sounds and shadows. The family of Candis Moizer were sharing their fears and outrage that Joey Wiebe was allowed to escape from custody and remained at large.

  “The people associated with this ought to be ashamed of themselves,” said Lorne Hodge. “It’s disgusting what’s happened. Someone has dropped the ball here. Someone is going to pay.”

  Hodge and his elderly parents, Charles and Cecilia, feared that it might be an innocent member of the public who suffered the most. “Joey doesn’t like being out in the world, being around people. If he encounters a stranger right now and the person says the wrong thing, brushes him off or slams a door in his face, there’s going to be trouble,” Hodge warned. He noted that Wiebe didn’t want to be at Selkirk and only way to get himself behind bars now would be to commit a new crime. “In his head, I worry he feels he’s got to do something to get himself to prison,” Hodge said. “Who’s he going to hurt or kill to earn himself a ticket to Stony Mountain?”

  Wiebe’s lawyer shared the concern, saying the escape was only going to make a bad situation worse. “His running away now means... he’s got a life sentence now,” said Greg Brodsky.

  Family members believe they could also be in Wiebe’s sights. After all, the killer once got caught in high school with a “hit list” of people he wanted dead. Candis Moizer, her brother and parents were all named.

  “We are very, very concerned for ourselves and our family,” Cecilia Hodge said.

  “He has a bit of a hatred on for a few of us in the family,” her son added. “If he does come here, we’ll do what we have to do to defend ourselves.”

  However, Wiebe’s biological father insisted his son was not a danger to others. Earl Wiebe—who was living common-law with Moizer at the time she was killed—said he felt Joey didn’t want to hurt anyone, since he wanted to avoid getting into more trouble. “Joey’s main thing is he wants his freedom,” Wiebe said from his Niverville home. He also believed his son would turn himself in to police so he could go back to Selkirk.

  Family members also blasted Selkirk officials for not taking greater precaution with Wiebe: “Where the hell was the sheriff’s department to escort him? Those [nursing assistants] had no business being there,” Lorne Hodge said.

  Following the escape, changes were made to ensure sheriff’s officers were brought in to escort dangerous patients like Wiebe to appointments outside the facility. But it was too late to make a difference here. “They say this guy is so dangerous and yet they have no controls on him?” added Charles Hodge.

  WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 4, 2006

  Joey Wiebe stole a pack of cigarettes from a convenience store when he was 15, only to be overcome by a guilty conscience that led him to return them along with a handwritten apology to the owner. “Mom, I did something really bad,” he told Alma Brown at the time. Now his mother was hoping Wiebe would have a similar appreciation for his actions and do the right thing by turning himself in after spending the past eight days on the run from police. She made a tearful plea for him to come out of hiding before he—or anyone else—got hurt.

  “I’m hoping he sees this and reads this. He knows by now I’m worried sick. But the fact I haven’t heard from him is starting to scare me,” Brown said. “I’m hopeful he will give himself up soon. I miss him terribly.”

  Brown, wiping away tears while staring at a smiling high school class photo of her son taken just months before he killed Moizer, said she didn’t believe he was capable of repeating such violence. She attributed it to a psychotic disorder that caused him to “snap.” “I believe with all my heart he’s not out there to hurt anyone else,” she said. That would include her husband, who Wiebe previously told a doctor he would kill if ever given the chance.

  “That’s just Joey blowing off steam,” said Brown.

  Brown said her son had been upset recently but never hinted that something big was about to happen. She last spoke to Wiebe the day before he escaped. They discussed plans for her weekend visit to Selkirk, with Wiebe even requesting the kind of food he wanted her to bring out.

  “We would talk every single day on the phone and he would often tell me ‘I’m so lonely, Mom’, but he never said he wanted to escape,” said Brown. Looking back though, she now believed Wiebe may have been planning his escape for some time, based on the fact he’d eluded capture for so long. He had been allowed phone and computer access in Selkirk, which could have allowed him to make some arrangements ahead of time. “Joey’s a very intelligent guy, and he tends to keep things to himself. I know he wasn’t happy [at Selkirk]. He just wanted freedom. He’s been locked up so long,” she said.

  Still, Brown insisted she hadn’t heard from her son and had no idea where he was. Many theories had gone through her head—maybe he found someone to shelter him or take him out of the province, she said. “I’ve been racking my brain like crazy.” Brown believed Wiebe only had about $20 in his pocket, plus the clothes on his back, when he escaped. “He’s not going to get very far on $20,” she said. Brown said her house was now being watched by officers anxious to bring Wiebe back into custody.

  “I don’t even understand how he could run away. He’s got a bad foot and can barely run,” she said, explaining Wiebe was run over by a riding lawnmower as a young child and suffered permanent injury. “Were these people even really watching him? Were they careless? I think they know they’re in shit.”

  WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 11, 2006

  The manhunt was over. Joey Wiebe was finally back in custody. He had somehow ended up in Victoria, British Columbia.

  “We’re surprised he was able to make it that far,” said Winnipeg police Sgt. Daryl Anning. “We know he had a wish to see the mountains…He saw them.” Wiebe told police he’d hitchhiked ac
ross Western Canada and had been in the BC capital for more than a week, enjoying the coastal sights.

  “He told me he met a bunch of new people and has just been hanging out, having fun, bird watching,” said Alma Brown. She spoke with her son by telephone for about 10 minutes after he was taken into police custody. “He told me he never had any intention of staying away permanently. He just said he wanted to get away for a while. But I’ll sleep a lot better tonight. There’s tremendous relief he’s OK,” said Brown. “I don’t know exactly how he made it out there or what he’s been doing. But he didn’t commit any other crimes.”

  Insp. Les Sylven of the Victoria Police Department said Wiebe wasn’t living on the street, but was likely staying in a low-cost motel. “It looked like he was able to support himself while he was here,” he said. Sylven said Wiebe turned himself in after calling his lawyer, Greg Brodsky. Brodsky in turn contacted Winnipeg police and Winnipeg police called Victoria police. Brodsky said his goal was to get Wiebe to surrender as quickly as possible: “I encouraged him to do it and he did.”

  Wiebe was following news reports about his escape and was aware of pleas from Brodsky and Brown to turn himself in, according to his mother. “He just decided it was time,” Brown said.

  Sylven said a Victoria police officer with the major crime unit met Wiebe at the corner of Dallas Road and Cook Street, a scenic beach area overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the Juan de Fuca Strait, and the Olympic Mountains in Washington state to the south. Wiebe was sitting on a log when the officer approached, and his run ended without incident. He was by himself and appeared in good health. “He told investigators he had hitchhiked west because he wanted to see the mountains,” Sylven said. Sylven also said police believed Wiebe committed no crimes while in the BC capital.

  Brodsky now admitted he heard from Wiebe “at least a dozen times” while police were frantically searching for him. Brodsky said he did everything he could to urge Wiebe to give up. “I was telling him, ‘Joey, you can’t serve a life sentence on the run. You have to come back and we can confront what’s not fair,’” said Brodsky. Wiebe finally listened to him, with the main trigger for turning himself in being the avalanche of news reports painting him as dangerous, said Brodsky.

  “He was very upset at all the awful things being said about him, hearing that schools were being watched and people were scared of him. He didn’t want people to think of him as some ogre,” Brodsky said. “He has shown everyone he’s not violent, he’s not dangerous. When he was out [on his escape], all he was doing was wondering how many skips his stones could make on the water in Victoria.”

  MONDAY OCTOBER 23, 2006

  His escape was the final straw. Now Selkirk Mental Health officials were seeking to send Joey Wiebe to another province, saying they could no longer tolerate his aggressive behaviour and refusal to be treated. The request came during a Criminal Code Review Board annual hearing that included a heated exchange between Wiebe’s doctor and lawyer and new revelations about how he spent two weeks on the run after his recent escape from custody.

  “The treatment team is strongly in favour of him being transferred. He still acts grossly inappropriate at times,” said Dr. Jim Willows, adding facilities in British Columbia and Ontario were options to consider.

  Willows said Wiebe’s disruptive actions over the past year included challenging staff members to fights, jumping up on tables and screaming and showing his fists while refusing to co-operate with counselling or treatment. He had also dared staff to “call the RCMP”—which Willows admitted he’d taken him up on out of fear that staff or other patients could be in jeopardy. That reaction prompted defence lawyer Greg Brodsky to accuse Willows of creating a “toxic” environment that Wiebe was desperate to get away from.

  “I don’t think you should be slandering me like that,” an angry Willows told Brodsky in court. “It would be malpractice if I didn’t respond the way that I did.”

  Wiebe now admitted he planned his flight and even received financial help from a source he refused to identify. Wiebe cut his hair short, dyed it and shaved off his moustache and goatee. He then headed to the west coast. He certainly didn’t act like a frightened fugitive. He told police he spent two days sitting inside the British Columbia Superior Court while he was being sought on a Canada-wide warrant and also tried to pose for a picture with an officer he met at a rock concert.

  “Could you speculate on why he’d put himself out like that in public?” Brodsky asked Dr. Leon Mowchun, another doctor who has briefly worked with Wiebe.

  “It appears he wished to be caught,” Mowchun told the Review Board.

  Wiebe was charged with escaping lawful custody, but the Crown stayed the charge after it was confirmed he didn’t commit any further crimes while on the loose—a fact Brodsky claimed proved Wiebe wasn’t dangerous. The dropped criminal case meant that Wiebe would return to the custody of mental health officials rather than spend a short stint in jail.

  Wiebe expressed relief after learning that Willows—who he’d repeatedly clashed with—would no longer be the treating psychologist at Selkirk. That job now fell to Dr. Steven Kremer, who had yet to meet with Wiebe. If Wiebe stayed in Manitoba it would be under far more stringent supervision, court was told.

  Wiebe—who was led to court in hand and leg shackles—would only be allowed out of the locked Selkirk facility under the guard of sheriff’s officers, said Willows. He had also been placed in the most secure part of the facility where only three other patients reside. “Any other security would be very dangerous. [The staff] would be putting themselves at risk and the public,” said Willows.

  Several doctors, including Willows, still believed Wiebe was a high risk to re-offend. Ken Nattrass, the CEO of SMHC, told court that history wouldn’t be allowed to repeat itself. But Crown attorney Corrine Deegan said everyone who dealt with Wiebe must be vigilant. “He is a risk to escape. He obviously has the means and the street smarts to sustain himself in the community,” she said.

  MONDAY OCTOBER 5, 2009

  He had managed to stay out of the headlines for the past three years, seemingly playing by the rules and being on his best behavior. But Joey Wiebe was back in a way that nobody could have imagined. Officials at Selkirk Mental Health Centre had caught Wiebe hiding a knife, drugs, alcohol, cash, cellular phone, laptop computer—and love letters from a female nurse—in the ceiling tiles of the facility in which he was believed to be planning another escape. The alarming discovery prompted several investigations and major security upgrades at Selkirk.

  Wiebe was now facing numerous criminal charges after a security guard heard a noise coming from Wiebe’s room in and discovered him accessing the stash. Wiebe assaulted and bit a guard during a subsequent scuffle. He was immediately removed from Selkirk and placed in the high-risk ward at the Winnipeg Remand Centre, where he remained on charges including assault, possession of a dangerous weapon and mischief.

  Danah Bellehumeur, the chief executive officer of the Selkirk facility, confirmed numerous steps had been taken to prevent a repeat occurrence, including terminating the employee who wrote several lurid letters found in Wiebe’s room. She immediately ordered increased searches of all patients and rooms inside the high-security forensic unit, where 14 patients deemed not criminally responsible by the courts currently resided. “We were already conducting searches, but now we are going to do them more frequently and extensively,” said Bellehumeur.

  Selkirk was also bringing in an outside agency to conduct a “risk assessment” of security in the unit and was applying for additional government funding to allow for three independent security guards on-site at all times. Currently, just one was stationed full-time in the building. “We want to ensure we’re doing all we can. We take this as a learning opportunity,” said Bellehumeur.

  Police and Selkirk officials were continuing to probe how Wiebe was able to get the contraband inside his room. “Clearly this
represents a gross breach of security. This causes us to profoundly reconsider how he’s doing and where he’s at,” Dr. Steven Kraemer, Wiebe’s treating psychiatrist, told his annual Criminal Code Review Board hearing.

  Kraemer said Selkirk officials weren’t prepared to welcome Wiebe back under any circumstances: “He has shown the ability to circumvent our security. We could not manage his return to our facility, even in the high-risk area,” he said. Kraemer suggested maximum-security facilities in Saskatchewan and British Columbia would be better fits. Kraemer said the fact Wiebe struck up a relationship with an employee shows how manipulative he could be, adding there were other staff members who were “enamoured with him.”

  Wiebe appeared at the hearing without a lawyer and was allowed to cross-examine the two witnesses and make his own arguments. “I don’t fear Selkirk. Selkirk fears me,” Wiebe said bluntly.

  Security was high in court, with five sheriff’s officers guarding a handcuffed and shackled Wiebe. They refused Wiebe’s request for a pen to take notes, issuing him a dull pencil instead.

  “The conditions I’ve been subjected to are 90 per cent of the reason these incidents have transpired,” said Wiebe. “There’s a lot of lies and half-truths here.”

  Wiebe said marijuana was thrown over the fence to him at Selkirk by another patient on the outside. He claimed he obtained the knife and alcohol while on an escorted outing with the nurse he was later found to be involved with. Wiebe said he had help from at least one other patient at Selkirk Mental Health Centre who wasn’t in the high-security area. He was never searched upon returning to the facility because their policy at the time didn’t require it based on the fact he had been escorted, court was told.

  Dr. Lawrence Ellerby, who had worked on Wiebe’s case, said that Wiebe might be developing a feeling that “he’s got nothing to lose” based on his ongoing frustrations and disciplinary issues. “He feels like he’s not able to move forward with his life at all,” said Ellerby.