While there was a slight increase in murders and vehicular deaths in 2025 over last year, the courts are still working through the ones from 2020 and 2021, with two convicted murderers facing sentences this year.
There were six homicides in Sudbury in 2025, including a double murder, an increase from 2024 (two) and 2023 (five), but a decrease to the number from 2022, when there were 12 murders in the Nickel City, the highest ever on record. For cities with more than 100,000 people, it was the third-highest homicide rate in Canada.
Accused of a double murder in Sudbury this summer, Romaine Sam, 26, was arrested by the Canadian Border Services Agency at Pearson International Airport in Toronto Oct. 4 after he returned to Canada. Wanted on two counts of second-degree murder, Sam reportedly fled to Southern Ontario shortly after the double-homicide occurred and then left the country prior to being identified.
Police reported they were dispatched to a city-owned apartment complex at 1960 Paris Street around 10:23 p.m. on Aug. 29 after receiving a 9-1-1 call about gunshots heard inside the building. When police arrived, a man and woman were found deceased on one of the floors of the apartment building.
The 41-year-old female victim was from Sudbury, police said though her name has not been released. GSPS said the male victim was a 29-year-old from Southern Ontario, whose name will not be released per his family’s request.
Several other people have also been charged in the case.
Keaton Pren, 44, was arrested on the night of the murders, and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He begins his pre-trial hearing Jan. 8, 2026.
Stephanie Labelle, 32, was arrested for accessory after the fact to the murders on Aug. 31, and Tinique Moore, a resident of Southern Ontario, was arrested Sept. 6 for the same charge. Sudbury.com will be following all three cases as they make their way through the courts.
The most recent homicide in Sudbury took place just before Christmas, Dec. 22, when a 67-year-old Sudbury woman was found dead in her Walden area home, said police. GSPS officers were dispatched to her home for a “person welfare check” they said in a release, but found her deceased. The incident is being investigated as a homicide, said police, and now a 34-year-old man is in custody, charged with her murder. His name was not released out of respect for the deceased’s next of kin, as the two are known to each other, said police.
“Information provided was that a loved one had concerns about the well-being of a community member due to ongoing issues with a family member,” reads the police release. “Officers arrived on scene and entered the residence due to the safety concerns for the community member as the family member was present at the residence and in an agitated state.”
Officers then located the 67-year-old woman dead inside the home.
“A post-mortem will be conducted through the coroner’s office to determine the cause of death,” said police.
The 34-year-old man will be held in custody to attend bail court to answer to the charges, said police, adding that this is an isolated and targeted incident as the individuals are related and known to each other. “This is not an Intimate Partner Violence IPV-related incident,” however.
Shortly before 3:25 p.m. on April 6, officers were dispatched to an address on Lansdowne Street for a suspicious vehicle. “Information provided was that a Black 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 was found in a garage and there appeared to be an unresponsive man inside,” said police in a news release.
Greater Sudbury Fire Services, Greater Sudbury Paramedic Services and Greater Sudbury Police attended the scene and found a 21-year-old man with gunshot wounds dead in the front seat.
But police had no idea what happened, or what area of the city the crime had taken place.
Then, around 3:30 p.m. on April 7, detectives from the Major Crime Section of the Criminal Investigation Division located and arrested 23-year-old, Monica Shawanda and charged her with accessory after the fact to murder. Police believe Shawanda was the driver at the time of the incident and that she then hid the vehicle in the garage on Lansdowne Street where it and the deceased man, whose name was not released by request of his family, were later located.
Further investigation brought new information and more charges from police: they believed that four individuals residing in Greater Sudbury knowingly assisted in hiding the truck containing the body in the garage. Officers arrested and charged: Jay Fournier, 23; Tori Toulouse, 22; Hailey Burnham, 25, with accessory after the fact to murder.
These three, along with Shawanda, were known to frequent the address on Lansdowne Street, said police. “It is believed that this was a targeted attack.”
By May 23, Detectives from GSPS with the assistance of the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) arrested a southern Ontario man, 27-year-old Joseph Alba, at Pearson Airport in Toronto.
All four charged with accessory after the fact continue to work their way through the court system. Alba will next be in court on Jan. 15.
Sudbury.com will be following all their cases.
On June 13, Greater Sudbury Police responded to a weapons complaint on Clemow Avenue in Gatchell and found a 40-year-old woman and a 39-year-old man with gunshot wounds. Police said the woman died later that day.
Later that day, officers arrested a man believed to be involved, Braidon Jordan, 19, and slapped him with 19 charges, including second-degree murder, several weapons charges, and drug possession. They found him on Barrydowne Road , said police, with a loaded handgun and 30.5 grams of cocaine (an estimated street value of $3,050.)
On June 28, police released images of another man believed to be involved in the murder, known as “W’ or “Felix”. This man is still at large.
They also revealed that a 14-year old was arrested in Peel Region and charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and seven weapons charges. As per the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), no further information related to the youth’s identity can be provided.
In order to facilitate the investigation, GSPS allocated a tip-line to assist in gathering relevant information from community members.
Anyone with information related to the incident is asked to contact police at 705-675-9171 extension 2320.
Lucky Ogbejiele, 36, became the suspect in a double-stabbing that sent his wife to hospital and left his mother-in-law dead after Greater Sudbury Police were dispatched to their on Lorne Street on July 2 at around 12:35 a.m. for what they said in a press release was “an intimate partner violence-related incident.”
“Information provided was that a community member and a family member had sustained serious injuries after a violent altercation with the community member’s partner,” GSPS said in a news release.
The release stated that when officers arrived on the scene, they found his wife 32-year-old Lydia Imie Ogbejiele outside the residence with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries; Inside the residence, police found her 63-year-old mother with “multiple suspected stab wounds.”
“Unfortunately, she was pronounced deceased on scene,” GSPS said. “Officers also located two children inside the residence who were not physically injured.”
With the hopes of raising funds to send her mother’s remains back to Nigeria — her mother was only in Canada visiting her — Lydia Imie spoke with Sudbury.com about the incident. You can find that story here.
Ogbejiele is back in court April 8, 2026.
There were also two pedestrians that died in Sudbury in 2025, both this fall, with one resulting in criminal charges for one 23-year-old woman. The incident claimed the life of a 37-year-old woman on Nov. 5 near the on-ramp to Maley Drive at Notre Dame Avenue. It happened around 6:15 a.m., said police. The woman is being charged with several Criminal Code and Highway Traffic Act offences, including failure to stop for an accident resulting in death. Police also said that the name of the deceased woman is not being released out of respect for the wishes of the family.
In another case involving a pedestrian death, GSPS said no charges will be filed in the case of pedestrian-vehicle collision that occurred at around 4:40 a.m. on Attlee Avenue near Lasalle Boulevard. GSPS said it has been determined that the driver was not at fault and that vehicle speed, drugs or alcohol were not factors in the collision, said police.
Greater Sudbury Fire Services and Paramedic Services were also dispatched to the scene. The pedestrian was transported to hospital by paramedics with serious, life-threatening injuries, said the police news release.
"Unfortunately, the 39-year-old woman was pronounced deceased at the hospital by medical professionals. Our deepest condolences go out to her family and friends. Her name will not be released out of respect for her family’s wishes," said the release.
In the courts
Edgar ‘Kyle’ Smith was convicted in Sudbury Superior court on Feb. 27 of first-degree murder and dangerous operation causing bodily harm in the death of 30-year-old Patrick McGregor.
During the trial, the court heard how Smith fatally stabbed McGregor, before running the man over with his own car near the intersection of Notre Dame Avenue and Lasalle Boulevard in New Sudbury on Sept. 7, 2021.
Almost four years to the day after the crime, Smith heard from McGregor's family for the first time through victim impact statements, and heard what the Crown was proposing for his sentence.
A second-degree murder charge comes with an automatic life sentence (25 years in Canada.)
What’s left for Justice Alexander Kurke is parole eligibility and the sentence for the second charge, dangerous operation of a vehicle causing bodily harm.
Though the sentences for each will be served at the same time, assistant Crown attorney Kevin Ludgate told the judge that it’s important for the second charge to be sentenced independently, as it’s not a continuation of the first offence — the stabbing — but a separate offence.
The Crown wants Smith to serve 16 years of a 25-year sentence before he is eligible for parole. The defence is asking for 13 years.
For the second charge, the defence submits a range between three and five years; for the Crown, that should be five years. The judge will rule on the sentence Jan. 2, 2026. Sudbury.com will have full coverege of the hearing.
When he testified Feb. 20 and 21, Smith told the court he stabbed McGregor in self-defence, and that McGregor “brought it to that point, not me.”
You can read his full testimony here.
A Sudbury woman convicted of a killing described as “one of the worst possible cases of second degree murder” by the judge in the case was sentenced Sept. 11 to 18 years in prison before she is eligible for parole.
Felicity Altiman, 45, was convicted Oct. 23, 2024 of stabbing her neighbour, Robert ‘Bob’ Keskinen 105 times, and mutilating his genitals before removing them and inserting them into his throat, the coroner who testified at trial calling the attack “ferocious.” The murder occurred on Dec. 26, 2020.
As evidenced by her presentencing report, detailing both aggravating and mitigating circumstances that help the it clear that Altiman had a tumultuous childhood, and raised in a family that was “abusive” said the report, it was a childhood that saw her kidnapped and forcibly confined for three years while she was sexually assaulted by both her father and uncle. A history that assistant Crown attorney Kaely Whillans described as “among the worst examples of the impact of colonialism.”
Altiman already had 64 convictions on her criminal record, and never held gainful employment, said the judge, noting her lack of education (only completing up to Grade 9).
Convicted of second-degree murder, Altiman received an automatic sentence of 25 years, with the judge only able to decide the first parole-consideration point, which was 18 years.
But the courts are still behind due to the pandemic effect and for at least accused in Sudbury, that meant the end of his case due to his right to a trial in a reasonable time, otherwise known as Section 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
David Murray, the Sudbury contractor and EcoLife owner, David Murray has been embroiled in the courts since 2018 — with the charges dating back to May 7, 2016, and continuing through March 28, 2019. He was accused of defrauding his customers of a police-estimated $800,000, but in an oral decision read in court Nov. 28, Justice Sharon Murphy found that rather than acting in a deceptive or manner, Murray was at the centre of a set of circumstances beyond his control, and happening all at once.
“Her honor used these words in her decision: ‘cascading effect’,” said Adam O’Brodovich in a phone interview with Sudbury.com.
But by that time, the guilty verdict was moot: the judge had already ruled that the case, delayed through a combination of Murray changing lawyers, the pandemic and the illness of the sitting judge, took 22 days longer than the allotted time for a reasonable trial in a provincial court: 18 months.
Murray left the court a free man, and according to O’Brodovich, “he’s still a member of the community and as far as I'm aware, he wants to stay a member of the community. I think it's great that this is out and clears his name.”
You can find a full retelling of the 2025 trial and the stay of proceedings here.
Jenny Lamothe covers the justice system for Sudbury.com