Madison Jimmy says it was shoot or be shot.The 25-year-old mother from Thunderchild First Nation is currently in jail at Pine Grove Correctional Centre near Prince Albert, charged with second-degree murder.Jimmy does not deny fatally shooting Tonio Cantell on Nov. 5. But she says it happened in an explosion of violence that left three men dead in a matter of minutes at a farmyard west of Turtleford, 226 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon. She said Cantell had killed her fiancé, 46-year-old Dustin Roberts, then swung the rifle between his own girlfriend and herself.”The look on his face,” she said in an interview with CBC.”He already shot my boyfriend, like ‘Who cares if I kill these two’ kind of look, y’know? So I shot him before he could shoot us.”Jimmy said she then hopped in a truck with Cantell’s girlfriend and another friend and drove the 16 kilometres to Turtleford, where she turned herself in at the RCMP detachment.The RCMP narrativePolice are still saying little about what happened in the farmyard that day.RCMP sent out a news release two days after the shootings, saying officers got a report about three injured people at a rural property northwest of Turtleford on Nov. 5, but by the time paramedics arrived, the three men were dead.They identified 28-year-old Tonio Cantell from Island Lake First Nation as one of the dead men, and said they had charged Madison Paddy-Jimmy with second-degree murder.RCMP said the two other victims were a 46-year-old man from Turtleford and a 30-year-old man from Big Island Lake Cree Territory, but have not released their names. Tonio ‘DoughBoii’ Cantell, 28, of Island Lake First Nation. Madison Jimmy says she shot him in self-defence. She is charged with second-degree murder in connection with his death on Nov. 5, 2025. (DoughBoii Cantell/Facebook)”No further identifying details will be provided for the two other males as the RCMP is not currently seeking the public’s assistance to further this investigation,” the RCMP’s release said.”Investigation determined each victim sustained gunshot wounds and all three deceased males are the victims of homicide. Investigators seized multiple firearms from the property. Investigators do not believe there are additional victims or suspects.”RCMP would not directly confirm that Jimmy turned herself in at the detachment, adding only that “we can confirm that Madison Paddy-Jimmy was arrested at the Turtleford RCMP Detachment” and that there was no manhunt or chase.WATCH | RCMP investigating 6 deaths since start of November, including 3 near Turtleford:RCMP investigating 6 deaths since start of November, including 3 near Turtleford, Sask.Saskatchewan RCMP say there have been six suspicious deaths in the province during the first week of November. Three of those deaths were in a rural area near Turtleford, while the others took place in La Ronge, the Nipawin area and Whitewood.Jimmy said the 46-year-old victim was Roberts, her fiancé, who had been renting the farmhouse for the better part of a decade and worked as a handyman on the nearby Thunderchild First Nation.Cantell was well known to RCMP. He was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant in 2022 after being unlawfully at large while on statutory release from a federal penitentiary sentence. He had been convicted of shooting at a rival gang member’s house.’Rboy and DoughBoii’Jimmy spoke with CBC by phone from Pine Grove on Nov. 21. A family member who was contacted by Jimmy while she waited outside the Turtleford detachment after the shooting also spoke with CBC about the events on the farm.CBC is not identifying the family member because they fear for their safety.Jimmy said that morning she had travelled the 85 kilometres from Lloydminster to the farm, where she lived with Roberts, in a truck with three people she knew casually.She was days away from graduating from a basic mechanics course in Lloydminster. She said the couple planned to run errands on her return.She said the people in the truck were Cantell, whom she knew by his gang name “DoughBoii,” his girlfriend Nikki and a third man, known to her as “Rboy.”Jimmy said when they arrived at the farm, Roberts and two other men were already there. They are identified in her court arraignment documents as people Jimmy may no longer have contact with.Jimmy said Cantell stayed in the farmyard instead of leaving after dropping her off. She said Rboy began pounding on the doors, and at one point, shot out a window of the farmhouse.”We just heard a real big bang on the window and my boyfriend went to go check it out and he asked the kid (the 30-year-old), ‘Why would you do that?’ And the kid was like, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ And then he pointed the gun at my boyfriend,” she said.”That’s when my boyfriend reacted and he pulled out his gun and shot the kid.”Jimmy said it seemed that things were still under control. Roberts approached Cantell and said they’d follow him into town to the hospital with the injured man. She and Roberts left the farmhouse and walked toward the quonset to get their truck.Cantell followed them in his truck to the quonset, “where everything happened,” Jimmy said.’And that’s the moment I unfroze’She said everything fell apart as they approached the quonset. At one point, Roberts walked around the front of the truck and went by the passenger side just as Cantell’s girlfriend opened the door, she said.”In that split second, she opened the door and he was walking by. That’s when Tonio shot my boyfriend. And my boyfriend, my fiance, said, ‘You didn’t have to do that, bro’ and then he fell to the ground,” she said.Jimmy remembers the shock, and the screaming.”I froze. Like, I didn’t know what to do,” she said.”In that moment, his girlfriend was yelling he didn’t have to do that. ‘Why would you do that?’ And that’s when he pointed it towards her. And that’s the moment I unfroze, like it’s either both me and her lives. I looked at my boyfriend and he had his gun right there, so I grabbed it,” she said.”By the time I grab it, I looked at him and he already had it pointing towards me again. And then, like, he already reloaded it … The look on his face. He already shot my boyfriend, like ‘Who cares if I kill these two’ kind of look, y’know? So I shot him before he could shoot us.”Jimmy said she and Nikki then ran back to the farmhouse. One of the other men in the farmhouse said he’d witnessed the shooting “and we should just leave everything as it is because we already checked on everybody and they were already passed away,” she said.The trio hopped in the truck and drove to the Turtleford detachment.”I didn’t even think of calling them. We just had to get there right away because I just killed somebody,” Jimmy said.They pounded on the door but there was no one at the detachment, so that’s when they called 911 and her family members, she said.’They’re going to use the Gladue factors’Jimmy’s family member said they spoke to CBC to balance the public narrative that has developed since the shootings and the murder charge.”I see all this media about her, saying she probably grew up in a bad family and they’re going to use the Gladue factors,” the family member said.Madison Jimmy, 25, is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Tonio ‘DoughBoii’ Cantell, 28. (Submitted by Jimmy family)Gladue factors are considered by the court during sentencing and take into account systemic elements such as racism, poverty and addictions that could have influenced an offender’s behaviour.This is not the case here, the family member said.”We’re good people. She’s a good girl. She has three boys, she graduated high school. She was an athlete, she was a good kid.”The family member said Jimmy struggled in recent years with alcohol after the death of a first cousin with whom he was close. She has no criminal history beyond an impaired driving charge and a charge for common assault.The family member does not believe Jimmy is involved in gangs, although she has relatives who are.”We’re not people that associate with gangs or do anything like that,” they said.”So this is all just as surprising to all of us and to the whole family.”Jimmy’s next court date is in December.
Woman at centre of Turtleford, Sask. triple homicide says she shot in self-defence
