WARNING: This story contains graphic details of a homicide scene.
The mother of the man accused of fatally shooting five people while high at a Winnipeg drug house tried to get her son to confess before she told police, “I feel like he did it.”
Mary Felix testified on Thursday that she reported those suspicions after Facebook Messenger exchanges with her son, Jamie Felix, in the days following a mass shooting on Langside Street on Nov. 26, 2023.
“For myself, I just need him off the streets,” Mary told police in a statement at the time, court heard at her son’s second-degree murder trial.
In screenshot messages, Jamie tells his mother, “unfortunately I am not going [to] be around for long mom … gonna be going out to the fullest … just have fun till they come to me,” Crown prosecutor Chantal Boutin said, reading from the message history.
Jamie Felix has pleaded not guilty to five counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Shawn Marko, 56, Dylan Maxwell Lavallee, 41, Melelek Leseri Lesikel, 29, and sisters Crystal Shannon Beardy, 34, and Stephanie Amanda Beardy, 33.
Earlier this week, investigators testified Felix’s fingerprints were found at the scene.
As well, Crown prosecutors Boutin and Georgia Couturier played surveillance footage they say puts Felix in the area at the time of the crime, along with his late father, Randolf “Chummy” Fagnan, and two others.
A home on Langside Street in Winnipeg surrounded by police tape following the Nov. 26, 2023, shooting of five people. (Jaison Empson/CBC)
On Thursday, court heard that before separating, Mary and Chummy had four children together, including twins Jamie and Johnathen Felix. Chummy was with Johnathen when he was shot to death in 2013, according to Mary.
“[Chummy’s] lifestyle was not good … always, like, drinking or doing drugs, and just other things. [That’s] the reason why I left,” Mary said, adding Fagnan had gang ties into his 50s when he died.
Mary said Felix was enrolled at Red River College before the shooting, and previously served about five years in the army reserves.Â
But the trauma of losing his brother Johnathen added to Felix’s misuse of alcohol and drugs, including cocaine, Mary testified. He had spent time in a rehab Peguis First Nation rehab facility in recent years.Â
Felix continued to use drugs, despite doctor’s warnings, after he developed a condition that causes seizures for which he was medicated, according to Mary.
She suggested Felix could at times come off as paranoid or confused. She said once when he visited in recent years, he left a room and when he re-entered asked her, “What are you doing here?”
“I was shocked and just said, ‘What are you talking about, Jamie?'” Mary told court. “He was a different person and it scared me … I had to snap him out of it.”
Mom identifies son, ex
In surveillance footage shown in court, she identified Fagnan as one of three people entering an elevator on Powers Street over an hour after the shooting. Mary identified her son on other surveillance footage from that morning.
Det. Sgt. Jarrett Reid was tasked with visiting Fagnan at his Powers Street apartment the day after Mary was interviewed.Â
He testified that he saw a Winnipeg Jets jersey in Fagnan’s apartment that matched one worn by one of three people seen in surveillance footage.
Fagnan was taken to a police station for questioning and told investigators that “when Jamie is about to … [have a seizure], he licks his lips a lot; he was licking his lips a lot that night,” court heard.
The Crown and defence agree Fagnan made the statement, just disagree on whether it was true.
Because Fagnan died Jan. 7 of this year and is unable to be cross-examined, Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Justice Alain G. J. Huberdeau cautioned jurors on that distinction, saying it was up to them “to determine what weight if any” to attribute to Fagnan’s statement.
Mary ‘didn’t want anyone hurt’
In the Facebook Messenger exchange, Mary sent and then deleted several messages to her son, including one, she told police, where she asked him whether he was at the Langside shooting location.
She said she learned Felix was at his paternal grandmother’s place with his “idiot dad … always [f—-] up other people’s lives, stay away from him,” according to Facebook Messenger messages reviewed in court.
At one point in the exchange, someone else begins to communicate with Mary through Felix’s account and identifies themself as grandma. That person said Felix is afraid and his “heart” hurts.
Once she believes she is speaking with Felix again, Mary tells him to say prayers and ask for guidance.
Felix indicates he is “gonna be going out to the fullest … till they come to me.” Mary says she doesn’t understand, expresses concern and says goodbye. Shortly after, she called police, court heard.
Felix’s lawyer, Theodore Mariash, suggested Mary was angry and questioned whether she was thinking clearly while messaging with Jamie.
Mary agreed with Mariash that she told police “I want to get Jamie off the street” because she suspected he did it.
“The idea that Jamie might be guilty of these crimes ate away you … brought back a lot of negative emotions,” Mariash said. “You assumed Jamie was guilty … because of your mother’s intuition, because you felt it, not because you knew it.”
Mary told Crown attorney Boutin her reason for co-operating with police was because she “just didn’t want anyone hurt,” including Felix.
The trial is expected to last about a month.