Condo neighbours horrified couple accused of killing cats – Winnipeg Free Press

Residents of a Lord Roberts condo complex are shaken after learning a couple who lives there allegedly tortured cats and sold footage of the killings on the dark web.

“It’s pretty horrifying, to be honest,” one resident said.

“We’re a pretty close-knit group here, we have a Facebook group and we all look out for each other. Then to hear that something like this was going on in our building the whole time and nobody knew, it’s kind of crazy.”

It was quiet at the pet-friendly condominium complex on Hugo St. South Wednesday morning, one day after police cautioned the public about vigilante justice. Identifying information about the couple, who are charged with animal cruelty, was posted on social media and connected the accused to the building.

Chad Kabecz, 40, and Irene Lima, 55, were arrested last week after animal welfare authorities were tipped off that videos, which showed small animals being crushed and killed, were being promoted in a dark web chat group and may have come from Winnipeg.

Police executed a search warrant at the condo and later said they’d found 10 dead cats and one dead rabbit.

On Wednesday, a resident, who has a cat, said the complex is filled with pet lovers who have been “traumatized” by the news, and that there have been cases of vandalism at the building since the arrests were announced.

“Obviously, this is such an emotional issue for anyone who has pets, and if people are going to start taking it out on our building just because they think that he lives here, that’s not the right thing to do,” she said.

Another resident was on scene when a truck, believed to belong to Kabecz, had its tires slashed and was towed away Tuesday. She didn’t know either of the accused but said they were “isolated” from the 120-plus people who live in the complex.

“You never know who actually lives next door to you,” she said. “It’s unsettling.”

Kabecz, a Manitoba Hydro employee with no criminal record, has been released on bail. Lima has not applied for bail and remains in custody.

A Manitoba Hydro spokesperson said Kabecz isn’t on the job while an internal investigation takes place.

“We can advise that the employee is not currently in the workplace and that the matter is being investigated internally,” Manitoba Hydro media relations officer Peter Churra said in an email. “Next steps will be determined following completion of that investigation.”

His bail conditions specify he must not use the internet, including buying or selling over the internet, and cannot be within three metres of any animal. He must also stay with his family in Swan River.

Court records show Lima has been twice convicted of fraud under $5,000, with each conviction involving an elderly, vulnerable victim.

In 2014, Lima, then 45, was sentenced to one year of house arrest after admitting she forged cheques that she had stolen from a 92-year-old woman for whom she was providing home care services.

Court was told Lima, a certified health care aide who was working for Realcare Inc., stole seven cheques from the woman, which she endorsed to herself in amounts totalling $4,900.

When confronted by her employer, Lima claimed the victim — who had no relatives in Manitoba — had gifted her the money.

At the time of her sentencing, Lima was continuing to work in home care and had not notified her new employer, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, that she had been charged with fraud.

Provincial court Judge Carena Roller initially resisted a joint recommendation by then-defence lawyer James Wood and then-Crown attorney David Ireland that Lima be allowed to serve a one-year conditional sentence in the community, noting it included no requirement Lima repay the money she had stolen.

“I have a problem with this,” Roller said. “Where are the consequences for this woman? Now she is going to return to the same employment position… the proposal is that she go back to her own bed and continue living her own life. I haven’t heard any remorse… If the community heard about this, they would think she had a slap on the wrist and was sent home.”

Roller only consented to the joint recommendation after Wood and Ireland agreed to include conditions that Lima repay the money she had stolen and that she inform her employer about her conviction.

Roller called Lima’s actions “repugnant.”

“I can’t imagine what possessed you to decide: ‘Today, I am going to start stealing from a 92-year-old client,’” Roller said. “There is no one more vulnerable than a 92-year-old woman who is thousands of miles away from her immediate family.”

Lima was back in court in 2018 and pleaded guilty to defrauding another home care client, a 78-year-old woman with dementia.

Court heard Lima was employed by VIP Home Care Inc. and had barely finished her conditional sentence in 2015 when she rang up over $2,000 in personal purchases on a credit card belonging to a mentally vulnerable and immobile woman for whom she had been providing full-time care.

“I felt sick to my stomach a convicted criminal had been taking care of my mother,” the woman’s daughter wrote in a victim impact statement provided to court. “This is someone who had preyed upon society’s most vulnerable and was still allowed to work in home care. How was this possible?”

Provincial court Judge Cynthia Devine rejected a Crown recommendation that Lima be sentenced to one year in jail, and instead imposed a two-year conditional sentence after accepting defence submissions Lima had been in an abusive marriage with three children to support and was on a path of recovery.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca