Robyn Ermine is escorted from court on May 19, 2017. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
A life sentence has been imposed on a Muskoday woman who killed her fiance, accompanied by the legal minimum period of parole ineligibility of 10 years.
Earlier this week, a Prince Albert jury found 30-year-old Robyn Laura Ermine guilty of second-degree murder in the Feb. 2015 stabbing death of her partner Evan Tylan Bear. He died of blood loss after a drunken fight between the couple, which took place in the Muskoday home they’d been living in at the time.
At her Friday sentencing, her lawyer Adam Masiowski said she “has stayed sober this entire time” since Bear’s death.
Justice Scherman said there’s no doubt alcohol was a significant negative factor, both in Ermine’s life previosly and in her actions that night.
He has agreed to the Crown prosecutor’s recommendation for Ermine to serve the minimum 10 years of her life sentence in jail before being able to apply for parole, saying it would not be “just and equitable” to sentence her to anything higher.
Scherman urged Ermine to continue on with a path of sobriety, which “will continue to be a struggle for her.”
The lenient sentence extends into Scherman allowing Ermine to serve time concurrently – or at the same time – for her other offence of breach of undertaking and for her victim surcharge.
Scherman pointed to Ermine’s remorse in her comments to the court.
Ermine tearfully said “I’m sorry for what I done, and I take full responsibility for it. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of” Bear, adding that she’s sorry for pain she’s caused Bear’s family, his 10-year-old son Jayce, and her own family.
She said she’s sorry “for my daughter for losing a mom,” referring to the time she’ll be in prison.
Ermine said when Bear was dying she left because she knew paramedics wouldn’t enter a home if she – the assailant – was still there, but “I should have stayed right by his side.
“I wish I could bring him back,” she said while sobbing.
Outside court, Jayce’s mother Shauna Munroe said she can’t accept Ermine’s apology because it took her two years to take responsibility for her actions. She was in court for all but one day of Ermine’s trial.
Shauna Munroe outside Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
“I was here on behalf of my son to hear that justice would be served and that we could just move on with our lives and know that she won’t be out there hurting anybody else anymore,” she said.
Now with sentencing complete, Munroe said she, her partner, and Jayce are “just gonna move on. We’re gonna do bigger things. Evan will always be there watching us.”
After Ermine received her sentence, she exchanged tearful hugs with family members and that emotion spilled out into the court hallway.
Ermine’s upset mother, Leona Bear, confronted a media member saying he had painted Evan out to be “an angel” and then yelled an expletives at Evan’s mother, with Evan’s mother yelling back. Darcy, Evan’s brother, tried to calm the situation as the two women walked away from each other.
Outside court, he acknowledged those tensions but also said his family wasn’t seeking a punitive sentence.
“Our family is of the belief of two wrongs don’t make a right. So her going to jail doesn’t bring Evan back. Her going to jail doesn’t fix the problems, the issues, the root cause issues between the two of them that caused them to be violent with each other,” Darcy said.
“If my brother loved her, we were open to loving her as well.”
After sentencing, Ermine was escorted away in cuffs and ankle chains. She also faces a lifetime firearm ban and DNA order.