Manitoba woman who slashed sister's throat nets 13-year sentence for attempted murder

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

A Manitoba woman who tried to murder her younger sister in a sneak knife attack, then stole her truck and left her to die in a Dauphin cemetery, will serve 13 years in prison. 

Kathleen Flatfoot, 50, previously pleaded guilty to attempted murder and learned her fate in Dauphin provincial court last Monday.

"Flatfoot's crime is an extremely violent one, and her behaviour afterward was cold, calculated and designed to avoid arrest," Judge Geoff Bayly said in his written sentencing decision.

Flatfoot attacked her 45-year-old sister from behind without provocation, leaving her "no ability to anticipate, protect or defend herself, Bayly wrote.

The victim was, in fact, "trying to support and help her sister with the difficult task of dealing with the death of her daughter," prior to the March 13, 2023, attack, the decision said.

Flatfoot's daughter had died accidentally after freezing to death on Lake Winnipegosis two weeks earlier.

Flatfoot, her sister and others had driven to Dauphin the day before to make funeral arrangements. According to Bayly's decision, Flatfoot was drinking and consuming drugs on the trip, and was frustrated by her sister asking for $200 for gas money.

She became angrier as they made their way to the small western Manitoba city, the decision said.

"Then her tirade turned dark, she talked about going 'on a killing spree,' that 'everyone was going to get it' and 'everyone is going to get hurt,'" Bayly wrote.

Hours later, Flatfoot, her sister and others parked their truck at the Dauphin cemetery to use drugs and wait for the funeral home to open. At some point, Flatfoot said to her son, "'let's just kill these f--kers and take their truck,'" the decision says.

"While seated directly behind her in the back seat of her sister's truck, the offender seized the opportunity and produced an eight-inch-long black hunting knife, placed one hand on her sister's forehead and used the other to slit her throat," it says.

The victim managed to flee, while two others in the group took off after her husband and beat him.

Flatfoot stole the truck, which was later abandoned in a park. Video surveillance from a nearby apartment block captured her laughing, then tossing her jacket away in the building's garbage room.