Grudge over family suicide sowed seeds for murder
Victim was once in relationship with convicted killer’s mother
A long, simmering grudge over a loved one’s suicide carried Christopher Matthew Brass to the back door of a Regina house.
Inside a bedroom there later that same morning, 51-year-old Daniel Dipaolo was found facedown, dead from a bullet to the head.
Several people were subsequently arrested and charged and one of them — 36-year-old Brass — pleaded guilty Thursday to firstdegree murder. He received the mandatory life sentence with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice L.L. Krogan told Brass — who appears to have two devil-type horns tattooed on his forehead — she hopes he uses the time in prison to consider how he ended up here, and what changes he needs to make.
“(Murder) is the ultimate deprivation,” she said. “It is the extinguishment of all Mr. Dipaolo was, and all he had yet to be.”
When charged in the Dipaolo killing, Brass was already in custody in Winnipeg on charges in two homicides from that city.
Crown prosecutor James Fitzgerald, who handled the case with co-crown Leona Andrews, told the court Dipaolo had once been in a relationship with Brass’s mother.
Seven years before the murder, Brass’s mother took her own life by using an electrical extension cord, court heard. Brass felt Dipaolo bore some responsibility for the death, Fitz- Gerald said.
Early on the morning of April 29, 2017, Brass and a group of others turned up at Dipaolo’s home on the 700 block of Garnet Street. Arriving in two vehicles stolen from Winnipeg, they brought with them a Simonov SKS rifle.
Fitz- Gerald said they discussed how to get into the house, as Brass didn’t believe his mother’s former partner would admit them. But, when the group went up to the door, they found it unlocked. Toting the rifle, Brass and three others went inside, finding Dipaolo in bed.
Fitz- Gerald said it wasn’t clear precisely when the violence started or what specifically sparked it, but court heard how one co-accused described Brass as moving behind Dipaolo and using a buck knife to stab him in the face, below the eye. After that, Brass — with help from two others — wrapped an extension cord around Dipaolo’s throat and strangled the man.
“It’s clear, my Lady, that Mr. Brass thought Mr. Dipaolo was deceased after the pulling on the extension cord around Mr. Dipaolo’s neck,” Fitz- Gerald said.
The group pilfered things from the house during the course of the incident. The last of the four to leave heard a noise from the man they believed dead, Fitz-gerald said.
That information was relayed to the others waiting outside, so Brass and a second man re-entered with the rifle.
A pop was heard coming from inside the house.
“After Mr. Brass and the other individual re-entered the house with the Simonov SKS rifle, Mr. Brass used the rifle to shoot Mr. Dipaolo in the back of the head from close range,” Fitz- Gerald said.
The gunshot wound proved fatal. Brass and some of the others stole a vehicle and headed back to Winnipeg, where he was arrested on May 2, 2017.
Members of Dipaolo’s family were present in court Thursday, but only his spouse Crystal Fox felt up to providing a victim impact statement.
Facing Brass, she read from her brief statement: “I feel cheated. My husband did not deserve that.”
Brass’s defence lawyer Jeff Deagle provided only brief submissions, telling the court his client asked him to keep it short. Deagle said Brass, who spent most of his youth in the foster care system, wanted to take responsibility for what he’d done.
When asked by Justice Lana Krogan if he had anything to add, Brass tersely replied, “I have nothing to say.”
While members of Dipaolo’s family did not wish to speak after court, family members previously described him as kind, a hard worker and a man who enjoyed time with his loved ones.
Edward Genaille, Johnathen Edward Kakewash and Malcolm Mitchell were also charged, and are still before the court.