TRAGIC NIGHT RECALLED
Witnesses recall night Lee Bonneau was found beaten to death
REGINA — A resident of the Kahkewistahaw First Nation fought back tears as he described holding a little boy’s hand, trying to reassure him that everything would be OK — but looking into his battered face and knowing it wouldn’t.
“I just held his hand all the way through it,” Thomas Alexson said during his emotional testimony Wednesday at a coroner’s inquest examining the death of Lee Allan Bonneau.
Alexson said he covered the six-year-old with his coat, telling him to hold on, and that “he’s not alone anymore.”
Searching by flashlight in an area known as the “back hills,” Alexson said he came upon the injured boy after hearing wheezing and moaning. “That’s when I saw his body,” he said.
“I found him!” he screamed out to the other residents who had joined in the frantic search after Bonneau disappeared from outside the recreation hall on Aug. 21, 2013. In the care of the Ministry of Social Services since June 6, 2013, Bonneau had accompanied his foster mother to a bingo on the reserve, about 150 kilometres east of Regina.
Mary Ramstead had taken Bonneau into her foster home — on a farm about six kilometres from the First Nation — three weeks earlier, when she received a call from a worker desperate to find a new foster home for the boy. He was proving a difficult placement due to troubling behaviour. Ramstead said she was initially reluctant but felt sorry for him.
She had planned to leave Bonneau with a babysitter when she decided to go to the bingo, but then her husband called to say he’d be in from the fields shortly and could get the boy from the hall early that evening.
Ramstead and Bonneau arrived for the 7:30 p.m. bingo, and the boy remained at her side until close to 8 p.m. when she gave him money to buy a pop and chips at the canteen. She said it was only a short distance from her table, and she saw him approach an open door and pet a dog there. Then he stepped outside.
She told the inquest that when Bonneau didn’t return within five minutes, she went outside to look for him — to no avail.
“I started to look for him right away,” Ramstead said in response to a question from Bonneau’s father David, who has standing at the inquest to ask questions of witnesses. He wondered if there was a “time gap” in the search.
Ramstead said she enlisted help from others since she was unfamiliar with the reserve as a non-resident.
“I didn’t think he would go far,” she said. Bonneau had been to the reserve only a few times previously for ice cream.
He was seen at one point that evening at a nearby playground with other children.
Ramstead said she encountered the mother of a 10-year-old boy — who by order of the coroner can only be identified as L.T. — with whom Bonneau had been seen that evening.
“‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘he was with my son,’ ” Ramstead recalled the woman telling her.
As it grew dark, Broadview RCMP were called shortly after 10 p.m. about the missing boy. Thirteen minutes later, a second call came in, saying a “severely beaten” boy had been found. He was in a field almost a kilometre from the centre.
RCMP officers were told by people who had gathered that Bonneau had been hit with a rock as well as a blood-covered stick, which lay near his feet. Some of the searchers suggested the killer was L.T., who was then sitting in a nearby vehicle.
Cpl. Carol Thomson said L.T. had blood on his shoes and appeared scared. He was placed under arrest, but was too young to face a criminal charge.
Ramstead arrived at the scene and rode in the ambulance with Bonneau.
“I cried all the way because I couldn’t stand the pain he was in,” she said, starting to weep. “It still haunts me.”
Bonneau was pronounced dead in hospital shortly after midnight.
Ramstead said that in hindsight, she shouldn’t have taken Bonneau with her. She recalled how when she and her family had taken him to the Regina Exhibition earlier that month, they had a tough time hanging onto the active boy.
Ramstead said she found Bonneau “a handful” because he was so active, suffered from nightmares and sleeplessness, and exhibited disturbing behaviour. She said she moved her bed into the hallway so she could ensure he didn’t leave at night.
She also found Bonneau “a loving boy” who had started to call her “mom” despite his shyness, she said.
“It left a void in our house after he was gone.”
Ramstead said sometimes she still lies down on the bed where he used to sleep.
Outside the inquest, David Bonneau suggested that if Social Services is going to place a child in a foster home, it should ensure he isn’t left unattended.
Celia Bonneau, Lee’s aunt, told reporters she gave Ramstead a hug after her testimony.
“I just wanted her to know that there is no hate in my heart; it’s just sorrow for her, too,” she said. “It’s been tragic even for L.T.’s family and for him. It’s just been tragic all the way around.”