Winnipeg police charge 32-year-old man in mass shooting that killed 4
Winnipeg police have arrested and charged a 32-year-old man with second-degree murder in connection with the mass shooting that left four people dead early Sunday morning in the city’s West Broadway neighbourhood, a news release says.
Jamie Randy Felix is charged with four counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted murder, a police news release says.
He was arrested at 6:30 a.m. Friday at a home on Fernwood Avenue, Insp. Jennifer McKinnon said at a news conference shortly after 10 a.m. the same day.
A large police presence was seen in the area of Fernwood Avenue and St. Anne’s Road, in the city’s St. Vital area, early Friday morning, including a tactical unit vehicle.
At Friday’s news conference, police said Felix had only been in custody for a few hours and they could not say if he knew the victims or why he was at the Langside Street home where Sunday’s mass shooting happened.
“That’s forming part of our investigation now,” said Sgt. Wade MacDonald of the homicide unit.
Investigators will execute a number of a search warrants Friday, MacDonald said.
Crystal Shannon Beardy, 34, Stephanie Amanda Beardy, 33, Melelek Leseri Lesikel, 29, and Dylan Maxwell Lavallee, 41, died after being shot in a unit of a multi-suite dwelling on Langside Street early Sunday morning.
Crystal Beardy and one of the men were pronounced dead at the scene. Three other people were rushed to hospital in critical condition, where another man and Stephanie Beardy died.
Felix’s twin brother, Johnathen James Felix, was murdered in 2012.
Felix told CBC Radio’s Now or Never in 2020 that he struggled with addictions following his brother’s death but had managed to find help through a support group for young men.
Victims remembered
Crystal and Stephanie Beardy were sisters, their mother, Beverley Beardy, confirmed to CBC News earlier this week.
The sisters were members of Lake St. Martin First Nation. Crystal was a mother of two boys and was living in Winnipeg, while Stephanie, a mother of two girls, was visiting the city from Lake St. Martin, their aunt Roberta Owen said at a vigil for the siblings in Winnipeg’s North End on Tuesday night.
She described her nieces as jokesters who were happy spirited, which is how she wants them to be remembered.
Dylan Lavallee’s sister said her brother was also a parent, and she will remember him as someone who put others first.
“He had the biggest heart. He was so kind,” Eve Lavallee said in an interview with CBC News earlier this week.
“He always puts me and his mother in front of everyone else.”
The youngest of the four victims, Melelek Leseri Lesikel, 29, had family in the United States and Kenya.
A 55-year-old man who was also shot is still in hospital in critical condition, police said Friday.
Watch the full Friday news conference below:
Featured VideoWinnipeg police announce an arrest in the case of a mass shooting in West Broadway last weekend that left four people dead. Another remains injured in hospital.
