WINNIPEG – Police have charged John Paul Ostamas, 40, in connection with three homicides in downtown Winnipeg over the past month.
Ostamas faces two first-degree murder charges in the weekend homicides of Donald Collins, 65, and Stony Stanley Bushie, 48, and one second-degree murder charge for the slaying of Myles Monias, 37, on April 10. He’s also charged with committing arson without regard for human life at the Winnipeg Hotel on Main Street Friday, the day police say Collins and Bushie were killed.
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Police allege Ostamas encountered Collins downtown on Friday evening and they went to an alley near Hargrave Street and Portage Avenue. Ostamas then attacked and murdered Collins, leaving him for dead in the alley, police allege.
He encountered Bushie downtown several hours later, police say. They went to a parkade near Hargrave and Portage, where Ostamas attacked and killed Bushie, police allege.
Ostamas came upon Monias in the Main Street bus shelter in the early morning hours of April 10, police say. Ostamas attacked Monias and left him for dead, police allege.
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Ostamas, from Eabametoong First Nation north of Thunder Bay, Ont., is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. Eabametoong First Nation, also known as Fort Hope 46, is 680 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg and 375 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.
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Ostamas has been in Winnipeg on and off for 10 years but lives a transient lifestyle, police said. His only previous contact with Winnipeg police was in connection with a domestic assault in March, but he has a record for multiple assaults in the Thunder Bay area dating back to 2002.
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Winnipeg police plan to contact forces in other communities they know Ostamas has visited, they said.
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Winnipeg police had released photos of a “person of interest” in the case on Sunday and sources told Global News Monday that he had been located. Police said they believe Ostamas is the man in those photos.
Bushie’s friend Martin Owens, who grew up with him on Little Grand Rapids First Nation, said everyone is devastated by his death.
“He was always a happy kind of guy, always joking around,” said Owens, who is chief of the First Nation.
Owens said he saw Bushie in Winnipeg just a few days ago and offered to pay his way back to Little Grand Rapids any time he wanted.
“I told him to go home,” Owens said. “But he was happy.”
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Bushie loved hunting and fishing, he said. Bushie’s mother taught him to live off the land and he was heartbroken when she died around 10 years ago, said Owens, who added Bushie is survived by an older brother and sister but never had any children of his own.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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