Man confined woman in Saskatoon home to ‘bait’ man back to party

Article content

A Saskatoon man accused of confining and sexually assaulting a woman in the city’s Meadowgreen neighbourhood last year has been released from custody.

Article content

Article content

Michael Andrew Thunderchild, 35, pleaded guilty to unlawfully confining a 21-year-old woman in a home in the 300 block of Witney Avenue on March 28, 2023. His other charges, including sexual assault, were stayed during a recent sentencing hearing in Saskatoon provincial court.

Article content

Crown prosecutor David Piche said Thunderchild had been scheduled for trial twice, but the Crown couldn’t find the victim.

“I’ve taken every step you could imagine to locate her. It’s not going to happen, so that is the basis for this resolution,” Piche told court.

“The quid pro quo is on the basis that the Crown is not going to be able to prove the most serious charge before the court, and they are going to have serious issues proving the others with the witnesses we were going to have for trial.”

Judge Brad Mitchell accepted a joint sentencing submission from the Crown and defence, imposing a sentence of time served. Thunderchild spent more than 500 days in custody, and was given an enhanced remand credit of just over two years.

According to the facts presented in court, a woman called police to report that two men were holding another woman against her will in a laundry room.

“Part of the reason for why this was happening was Mr. Thunderchild was trying to have another associate come back to the residence and used this person as leverage,” he told court.

Thunderchild’s co-accused, 20-year-old Chase Sanderson, pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced earlier this year.

Article content

Article content

At his hearing, court heard the woman told police that Thunderchild ordered Sanderson to drag her into the laundry room, where she was bound and assaulted throughout the night until she was able to call her cousin.

Crown prosecutor Jaimie MacLean said the Crown isn’t alleging that Sanderson knew what would happen in the room, only that the woman was being used as “bait” to lure a man back to the party.

Court heard officers found the woman bound with duct tape and took her away from the home. They set up a barricade just after 9 a.m. Sanderson came out half an hour later, and Thunderchild surrendered about four hours later.

Sanderson was released on electronic monitoring in December 2023, but was back in custody two days later after he cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet, court heard.

For the breach and assault, he was sentenced to eight months in jail, plus 12 months of probation. Legal aid lawyer Julia Quigley said Sanderson, who is from James Smith Cree Nation, had been living in Saskatoon for a year when he fell into “the wrong crowd.”

“Mr. Sanderson got wrapped up in something much bigger than himself, and … in a sense, had a lot of pressure put on him by the co-accused in this case,” she told court at the time.

Article content

Thunderchild’s lawyer, Celia Harradence, said her client was often unsupervised as a child while his father was in jail and his mother worked two jobs. Court heard both his parents used alcohol to cope with the trauma they endured at residential school.

“He did emphasize to me that growing up, because he was on his own so much, he felt like his parents weren’t exactly true parent figures to him, and this contributed to him not being able to know right from wrong. He felt like he just didn’t have much guidance in life,” Harradence said.

Thunderchild attempted suicide in 2021, but his father intervened, Harradence told court. He later died from cancer while Thunderchild was in jail.

Going forward, “he just wants someone to talk to,” Harradence said.

“I’ve been sitting for quite some time here, and these walls can really get to a person. I’m just happy to get this all behind me and come to a resolution in which I can try and better myself for the future,” Thunderchild told court.

The Saskatoon Star Phoenix has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.

With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.

Article content