Mountie admits 911 call mishandled
Woman murdered by boyfriend
EDMONTON — An RCMP officer admits he should have handled differently the case of a northern Alberta woman who called 911 before she was stabbed to death by her boyfriend.
Const. Devon Bateman told a fatality inquiry Tuesday that mistakes and misunderstandings started with the operator who took an emergency call from Brenda Moreside in High Prairie in February 2005.
Court previously heard that the operator wrongly labelled Moreside’s complaint as vandalism instead of domestic violence. A supervisor also testified that the operator was condescending and unprofessional in handling the call.
Bateman said the operator failed to pass on important information to him about the call, including that Moreside wanted police to hurry because her drunken boyfriend was pushing on a door she was holding. The officer said he believed Moreside was complaining about a broken window when he phoned to talk with her.
He told the 44-year-old woman that her boyfriend couldn’t be arrested for breaking a window in their home. Moreside urged Bateman to come deal with her boyfriend.
Bateman said Moreside responded: “Are you going to wait until he kills me until you come?”
He said it was the first mention of violence and he asked the woman if she was concerned for her safety.
She said no. “I just don’t want to deal with him. Can you come and put him in the drunk tank for the night?”
Bateman repeated to Moreside that he couldn’t take her boyfriend away and the woman abruptly hung up.
Twelve days later, acting on a tip, police found Moreside dead. She was lying in her bloody pyjamas near the door of her home. Stanley Willier later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 13 1/2 years.
Bateman told court that because of his inexperience at the time — just over two years on the job — he failed to ask Moreside more questions on the phone.
He said he also should have done a database check on Willier, a man with a violent criminal record. A search would have showed Moreside had filed an assault complaint against Willier six months earlier.