Alleged murderer Lulonda Lynn Flett, 41, was led into a week-long preliminary hearing in Winnipeg August 13, 2012, to see if there was sufficient evidence to send her to trial for a massacre that killed five and severely injured three, and there is enough evidence. The hearing ended abruptly when the Crown dropped three additional charges of attempted murder and Flett stands to face five counts of murder in the second degree allegedly committed by arson last year, July 13, 2011. Now the trial will proceed at a date to be determined.
Police say Flett was witnessed torching the porch at the front of an old 13-room wood-frame tenement, igniting the front of the building using some kind of combustible fuel. She started the fire in the middle of the night, before 2:00 a.m., then was seen leaving the area while the ensuing blaze lit-up the tinder-dry house and immolated eight people inside. City fire officials told media the blaze was climbing stairs and “blocking an obvious escape route by the time crews arrived.” Neighbours told Winnipeg media that the rooming house was occupied by drug addicts.
Flett's fiery attack took place last summer in a city staggered by a heatwave, a weather inferno that seemed to spawn a fury of arsonists. By the end of it, firefighters told CBC News in October they had just been through the "summer of hell" with arson incidents. Flett's charges came from witness accounts and investigation into her motives.
"I can acknowledge that our accused may have known at least one individual who did reside at that location," said Const. Jason Michalyshen, on the Sunday following her arrest. The 13-room tenement was not known to be her residence. She was under court order to stay away from her sister-in-law, Lynette Harper, who was among eight people at the house during the time of the fire. Harper was one of the few who escaped “unscathed” along with another resident Marie Flett.
Flett`s August date at the hearing occurred after Howard James Mason, 52, another arson-killer, had a life sentence upheld July 2, 2012 by the Manitoba Court of Appeal. Justices Richard Chartier, Holly Beard and Marc Monnin agreed with the judge who sentenced Mason, Justice Brenda Keyser, in putting the protection of the public first after "chilling" crime and his horrendous criminal record.” Mason was a violent Winnipeg arsonist who confessed to killing two people on Dec. 21, 2006, using a lighter, what he calls a "f--kin' deadly weapon," to inflict a 'Rubby death' by setting fire to a couch of a rooming house. People were passed out inside.
A few days after the fire Mason turned himself into police. He said he was motivated by “anger … wanted to hurt some people.” Dan Vaillant and Lavina Bradburn were burned beyond recognition and had to be identified through DNA tests. Another woman trapped in the blaze spent five months in hospital, suffered burns to 55 per cent of her body, lost fingers and required over two dozen surgeries.
In 2011 Mason made a plea of guilty to two counts of manslaughter and a count of arson causing bodily harm. Mason had a long criminal record including arson convictons in 1977 and 2001, and numerous convictions for assault and robbery. He served three prior prison terms. During the appeal a psychologist called Mason a "versatile and persistent" criminal. Mason has been "unable or unwilling" to face substance abuse and anger problems.
The Appeal Court judges ruled that his punishment of was not "harsh and excessive. It was certainly open to the sentencing judge … to conclude that (Mason) could not be deterred and that, out of public safety concerns, the time had come to physically remove and separate him from society and to put controls in place for the remainder of his life," Chartier said.
Justice Keyser based her lower court decision on evidence showing he had "minimal prospects for rehabilitation, lack of empathy and insight as well as repeated and continuous aggressive behaviour spanning his entire adult life." Mason presently serves a life sentence. The last recourse for this convicted killer is the Supreme Court of Canada if he still believes the sentence is excessive punishment for killing two and mutilating another. He receives his first chance at parole in 2013.
