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Homeless homicide victim Tammie Howard was tortured for hours in a southeast Calgary garage before her body was stuffed into a hockey bag and dumped in a remote location on the Siksika First Nation, court heard Monday.
During Howard’s lengthy confinement that led to her death, she was tied up, hung from the garage’s rafters and had nails fired into her extremities in the assault 7½ years ago, Crown prosecutor Donna Spaner told court.
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Reading from a statement of agreed facts to support Natalie Renee Vinje’s guilty plea to a reduced charge of manslaughter in the victim’s Dec. 25, 2016, killing, Spaner said Howard was brought to the Forest Lawn property as a “Christmas present.”
Vinje had been charged with first-degree murder in the victim’s death.
In a July 28, 2022, statement to an undercover Calgary police officer posing as the head of a criminal organization, Vinje said Howard owed her $200 over a drug debt and also was indebted to the killer’s then-boyfriend, Thomas Evans.
Vinje had gone to meet with “Mr. Big” after preplanned interactions with other undercover operatives led her to believe she was about to be charged in Howard’s death.
Spaner said Vinje told Mr. Big she was cooking dinner at the 47th Street S.E. residence where she and Evans were living, “when she received a phone call from Evans advising ‘he got a Christmas present for her/got a surprise for her.’ ”
Vinje said she, Scott Stimson and Melissa Badman were in the detached garage when Evans and Mark Duthie arrived with Howard.
“Vinje knew that (Howard) was homeless, addicted to drugs and worked on the streets,” Spaner told Justice Jim Eamon.
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Evans instructed Duthie and Stimson to tie up the victim and “have her ready when he got back,” and told Vinje she was in charge.
“Stimson used a rope to tie (the victim’s) wrists and hang her from a hook in the rafters of the garage,” she informed Mr. Big.
The offender also admitted punching Howard as she was hanging from the rafters and said the victim was assaulted with a nail gun while Vinje wasn’t present.
After about 12 hours, Vinje found Howard lifeless and told the others to untie her.
Howard’s body was later placed in a hockey bag and dumped east of Calgary.
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She was originally reported missing in April 2017, and a human skull was found in a remote location on Siksika lands on May 4, 2021. A DNA comparison of the remains to Howard’s daughter found it was extremely likely the skull belonged to Howard.
No other remains have been found.
Stimson later died of a drug overdose and no other individual has been charged in the killing. Vinje’s unsworn statement to the undercover officer could not be used as evidence against any other suspect.
Defence lawyer Andrea Urquhart has requested a psychiatric assessment be done on her client ahead of sentencing submissions in the fall.
KMartin@postmedia.com
X: @KMartinCourts
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