Paige Paupanakis initially went silent when the person on the phone said her sister’s killer was being released from prison.Then the tears came in a surge.”I just bursted out. I feel like my sister just passed away yesterday, when I found out the news again. It just reopened the wound,” Paupanakis, 21, told CBC on Thursday morning.”I didn’t know what to think, because I didn’t expect it. I didn’t know that it was coming this soon. It’s too soon. I still don’t know how to feel.”Paupanakis’s 18-year-old sister, Lorna Blacksmith, was one of two women killed by Shawn Lamb in Winnipeg in 2012. The other is Carolyn Sinclair, who was 25.Sinclair’s body was found in March 2012, near a dumpster on Notre Dame Avenue in Winnipeg’s West End.Blacksmith’s body was found three months later, in the backyard of a home on Simcoe Street, about six blocks from where Sinclair was found. Lorna Blacksmith, left, and Carolyn Sinclair were killed by Shawn Lamb in 2012. (Submitted by Winnipeg Police Service)Lamb, now 66, was arrested in June 2012 and sentenced in 2013 to 20 years in prison — 10 years for each killing — minus time served while awaiting trial.He was originally charged with three counts of second-degree murder, including for the alleged killing of Tanya Nepinak, 31, who went missing in September 2011.The Crown stayed that charge because of a lack of evidence, and reduced the charges in relation to Blacksmith and Sinclair to manslaughter as part of a plea deal.Lamb is being granted statutory release on Thursday.The law requires that federal offenders who have served two-thirds of a fixed-length sentence be released under supervision, though that can be denied in some circumstances.Lamb was first eligible for parole in 2022.Shawn Lamb is shown in an undated file photo. He was sentenced in 2013 to 20 years in prison but is being granted statutory release. (CBC)He is now required to spend at least half a year at a designated facility as part of conditions imposed by the Parole Board of Canada.No information has been provided on where Lamb will be living.”I think 13 years is not enough,” said Paupanakis, who is not only angry about Lamb’s release, but that her immediate family wasn’t advised ahead of time.Instead, she learned about it from an aunt, and then through social media postings.”This news was a big shock to me and it hurt so much,” Paupanakis said. “No one in my family heard from the parole office or any authorities. My family found out from Facebook.”‘Like a slap in the face’: daughterNepinak’s daughter, Jasmine Mann, 24, also found out through Facebook, when her feed was filled with news reports about Lamb.”I think I’m still processing everything. I’m feeling angry, I’m hurt, sad, all of it,” she said, adding she didn’t want to believe it was true.She had to tell her grandma, Nepinak’s mom.”A heads up would have been nice. Nobody knew,” Mann said. Jasmine Mann, daughter of Tanya Nepinak, wants her mom’s name to be out there as much as possible and for Shawn Lamb to hear it. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)”He’s going to be walking freely, and they haven’t even started the landfill search yet for my mom. It honestly felt like a slap in the face.”Nepinak’s body has never been found, although police have previously told the family they believe she’s dead and that her remains are buried in the city’s Brady Road landfill.They have said they believe Lamb killed her. Lamb has denied any involvement.A 2012 search for her remains in the landfill was cancelled six days after it began, with police finding no evidence.However, in August of this year, Premier Wab Kinew said his government would restart the search. No date was given.’Not justice’: KinewFollowing Lamb’s release, Kinew told reporters the province is working to determine what that could mean for the search. “We’re trying to return the remains of a loved one so that the family can move on, but … do we now have to think about this differently?” he said on Thursday. “We’re going to take the time to get those things right.” Tanya Nepinak, in an undated photo, holds her kids, Joseph Mann, left, and Jasmine Mann. (Submitted by Jasmine Mann)In the meantime, the provincial government will continue supporting the families affected by Lamb’s release, he said.”This is not justice,” said Kinew. “How does this help victims’ family members heal and feel secure in the community? How does this help foster a feeling that our justice system actually delivers justice?”The premier said he is writing to Prime Minister Mark Carney in a letter he said is not specifically about Lamb’s case, but about the need to confront “bigger picture questions” about the justice system and systemic issues regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.”There’s a number of issues that I’ll be raising,” he said. “It is about parole, it is about statutory release, it’s about sentencing, more generally, and just ensuring that if somebody takes multiple lives in our society that they’re going to be held accountable.”Paige Paupanakis is hugged by her big sister Lorna Blacksmith in an undated photo. (Submitted by Paige Paupanakis)The families of Blacksmith, Sinclair and Nepinak, along with Morgan’s Warriors, are hosting a rally at 3 p.m. Thursday in front of Union Station at Main Street and Broadway to protest Lamb’s release.Morgan’s Warriors is an outreach group named in memory of Morgan Harris, whose remains were found in a landfill outside Winnipeg earlier this year.She was among four First Nations women murdered by serial killer Jeremy Skibicki in 2022.”This rally is to show Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and all over Turtle Island that this is unacceptable. Thirteen years … is totally unacceptable,” said Paupanakis.”Knowing that he had a history of criminal activity and you’re letting him out so soon? I think that this rally goes to show that he’s not welcome here.”A poster for the rally on Thursday in Winnipeg encourages people to bring signs, drums, songs and love. (CBC)Mann said being present at the rally means ensuring her mom is not forgotten.”Now that he’s going to be out in the public, I want her name to be out there and for him to hear it too,” she said.“And also just for other women, raising awareness, letting people know that he’s going to be walking around freely.”Paupanakis, too, wants to make sure people know Lorna Blacksmith was more than a victim.”It’s very important for people to know that my sister had a big smile and she had a kind heart and she had big dreams,” she said.”She was big into cadets and she always went to the Yukon to go train with them. She had a whole life ahead of her, and it got taken away just like that.”
Shawn Lamb’s prison release has ‘reopened the wound,’ says sister of killer’s victim
