Mike on Crime (5 page)

The family of Wiebe's victim was in court and said the legal system should be ashamed. “It is pretty sad that somebody like that can manipulate the justice system,” said Lorne Hodge. “As time goes on, the truth is slowly coming out.”

Hodge was sickened to hear Willow testify how Wiebe had recently admitted to attempting to rape his stepmother before he viciously attacked her with a knife and his hands. That disclosure of evidence was never made by Wiebe during the trial.

Defence lawyer Greg Brodsky called allegations that his client faked being mentally ill “the theatre of the absurd.” “It's absolutely inappropriate for us to retry this case,” he said. Brodsky said Wiebe was willing to say and do just about anything to get out of Selkirk, where he was spending most of his days locked in a small room by himself. The only medical treatment he was receiving was a daily sleeping pill, said Brodsky. He wanted Wiebe transferred to a facility in Ontario or British Columbia, but the waiting lists were long.

Willows said there was good reason Wiebe wasn't being treated more extensively: “He has no symptoms of psychosis, no symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Whether the court found [a mental illness] or not, I don't see it and I can't treat it,” he said bluntly. He blasted Crown and defence lawyers in the trial for relying on evidence from doctors commissioned by Brodsky to examine Wiebe. “I find that very tragic,” said Willows.

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 27, 2006

This wasn't the way the Selkirk Mental Health Centre wanted to get rid of Joey Wiebe. The mentally ill killer was now a wanted fugitive. Wiebe, now 23, had somehow managed to shake two escorts during what was supposed to be a routine medical appointment in Winnipeg.

Selkirk's CEO, Ken Nattrass, said Wiebe and the two male staff members had just walked into the main doors of the Health Sciences Centre entrance when Wiebe suddenly turned and ran. Wiebe had not been wearing handcuffs or leg shackles. “He just turned and bolted out the door and ran as fast as he could,” Nattrass said. He said the escorts chased Wiebe, but “he outran them and was out of their sight.”

Wiebe's lawyer, Greg Brodsky, appealed for him to surrender to police right away so that he could get the psychiatric help he needed: “He needs to turn himself in. The best thing for him is to pursue his treatment options. He can't do that on the outside.”

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 across 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.