Mike on Crime

By Mike McIntyre
Winnipeg Free Press

A Winnipeg man accused of giving a fatal dose of morphine to a young woman has been freed on bail.

Provincial court Judge Catherine Carlson agreed this afternoon to release Curtis James Haas on several conditions. The Crown was opposed. A court-ordered ban prevents specific details of the hearing from being published.

Haas, 47, was arrested earlier this month on charges of manslaughter and trafficking in morphine in what legal experts believe is the city’s first case of its kind.

Wendy Henry, 20, collapsed and stopped breathing after taking a number of morphine tablets inside a Dufferin Avenue rooming house suite that Haas owned last fall. She was rushed to hospital but died the following morning.

On the night of her fatal overdose last October, Henry and some friends had gone to an Ozzy Osbourne concert at the MTS Centre. She then went to stay the night with her mother — who lived in the same Manitoba Housing apartment complex as Haas.

Somehow, she ended up inside his suite.

Police said Haas is not known to them, and court records show he has no criminal history in Manitoba.