Boyfriend found guilty after woman fatally stabbed in the heart in 2014

Ajury took less than four hours to decide a Winnipeg man was guilty of manslaughter after his girlfriend was fatally stabbed inside a suite at a West End rooming house in 2014.

Beatrice Ann Crane, 44, died after she was found with a two-inch stab wound in her side inside a suite at 500 Victor Street on Nov. 21, 2014. The blade pierced her heart, and she bled to death.

Four months later on March 23, 2015, police arrested Ronald Alvin Thomas, 43, who was in a relationship with Crane at the time of her death.

This case has no smoking gun, or maybe it's better to say no bloody knife.- Crown prosecutor MelissaHazelton

Thomas pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. On Feb. 1, 2018, a jury of six women and six men found Thomas guilty.

Police never recovered the weaponand prosecutors built their case using largely circumstantial evidence.

"This case has no smoking gun, or maybe it's better to say no bloody knife," said Crown prosecutor Melissa Hazelton during her closing statements.

Played 911 call

The Crown argued that Thomas's actions after Crane was stabbed showed he was trying to evade police. Before making her closing arguments, Hazelton played a recording of a 911 call made by Thomas around 3 a.m. on Nov. 21.

"What's happening?" the 911 dispatcher asks in the recording.

"I don't know, we just got and she's lying here and she's got like, looks like a stab marking in her side," Thomas replies.

Later in the 911 call, Thomas is connected to the ambulance dispatcher.

"When did this happen?" the dispatcher asks.

"I don't know, she could have fell on something, I don't know," Thomas says.

The dispatcher then asks Thomas to give his name, telling him that police are already there and asking him to stay on the line, but the call goes dead.

"If you had come across your injured partner, with no idea of how they got injured, would you refuse to identify yourself to police, and then leave as soon as you know help is on the way? The Crown says, no," Hazelton said to the jury.

Hazelton argued Thomas's claim about just arriving and his unprompted suggestion that she might have fallen on something were attempts to distract police once he realized he might have incriminated himself.

Why would Mr. Thomas phone for help if he was the stabber?- Defence counsel GregBrodsky

Thomas lived in another suite inside the same rooming house, and police found him there after discovering Crane's body, eyes open, sitting in a chair inside her suite. When police banged on Thomas's door, he tried to shut it in their faces after opening it to see who was there, officers testified during the trial.

The clothes Thomas was wearing had Crane's blood on them, and Hazelton said Thomas had gone to his suite to try to change.

Thomas's defence counsel Greg Brodsky questioned why Thomas would call police if he was guilty.

"Why would Mr. Thomas phone for help if he was the stabber?" Brodsky asked the jury. "He wants to confirm that help is coming and on the way and then he hangs up ... He doesn't leave the building. He waits to make sure Beatrice is going to be looked after. It's not the actionsof a killer."

But Hazelton pointed out that Thomas would have heard police banging on the front door and knew there was no way out.

Knife not found

Brodsky questioned why no blood-spatter analysis was done, andwhy police didn't seriously investigate other people who lived in the building, including one who said he had a knife with him when he and Crane went to look for cigarette butts earlier that night.

"Where's the knife that was used in the stabbing? Police looked for it ... They couldn't find it. Who took it out?" Brodsky said.

No motive for the killing was suggested by the Crown, and witnesses said they didn't hear any sounds of an argument inside Crane's suite the night she was stabbed.

The trial lasted fivedays and was presided over by Justice Christopher Martin.

Thomas has a sentencing hearing scheduled for May 3.