ManitobaA woman who admitted stabbing her cousin to death on a northern Manitoba First Nation in 2023 has been sentenced to seven years in prison.’I took my first cousin’s life … and I have to live with this guilt,’ Tatyana Bruce saysOzten Shebahkeget · CBC News · Posted: Sep 08, 2025 4:37 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours agoPoplar River First Nation is pictured in an aerial stock photo. A woman has been sentenced for manslaughter after she admitted to stabbing her cousin to death on the First Nation in December 2023. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)WARNING: This story contains graphic details of violence.A woman who admitted stabbing her cousin to death on a northern Manitoba First Nation has been sentenced to seven years in prison.On Monday, Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Justice Richard Saull accepted a joint submission from the Crown and defence to hand Tatyana Bruce, 29, a seven-year sentence for manslaughter. After factoring in credit for time served, she will have four and a half years left to serve.Brad Bushie, 31, died from a stab wound that punctured his chest cavity and lung on Dec. 28, 2023, on Poplar River First Nation, about 350 kilometres north of Winnipeg.Bruce was originally charged with second-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter in June.She apologized to her family and Bushie’s family in a written statement that she read in court in Winnipeg Monday, with her father, sister and aunt getting emotional in the gallery.”I not only took someone’s life, I took a son, a brother, a father, a friend,” she said. “I took my first cousin’s life from this world and I have to live with this guilt for the rest of my life.”Court heard that an argument over drug money led to the stabbing.Bruce’s lawyer, Mike Cook, said Bushie believed his cousin “had skimmed some money that was [owed] to him.”The two pushed and shoved each other before Bruce pulled a knife, stabbing Bushie three times, said Cook. Bushie’s dead body was later found in between two houses in Poplar River.Cook said Bruce had a “difficult life,” suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, intergenerational trauma, alcoholism, physical and sexual abuse, and gang and domestic violence.”If we ever had a checklist of Gladue factors, I think pretty much every box would be checked off.”Cook said the Bruce and Bushie families have begun to reconcile since the stabbing, which Cook credited in part to Bruce’s guilty plea.
Manitoba woman who fatally stabbed cousin in drug money dispute sentenced to 7 years
