Woman pleads guilty to helping cover up Candace Stevens's homicide
A Moncton woman has confessed she helped cover up the crime of the man who killed Candace Stevens in 2018.
Wendy Losier, 42, was charged earlier with comforting or assisting James Curtis, also known as James Knight, on Oct. 26, 2018, for the purpose of enabling him to escape. She was also accused of transporting Stevens's remains on Oct. 27.
Court documents show Losier pleaded guilty to the charges before the Court of Queen's Bench on Wednesday.
The documents present the first picture of what happened the day Stevens was shot to death at Curtis and Losier's home in Fredericton.
Stevens's remains were found inside a hockey bag on Oct. 27, 2018 in Upper Derby, near Miramichi. She was the mother of a young girl and was working at a Fredericton spa at the time of her death.
Curtis was the same man who opened fire at a Walmart in 2018, then died at the end of a lengthy police chase.
How the night unfolded
The court documents reveal Stevens showed up at 530 Regent St. in Fredericton on Oct. 26, 2018, looking to speak with someone by the name of "Nick."
She believed he was responsible for shots fired at her car. Stevens "physically assaulted" Curtis and Losier, the documents say.
Curtis tried to calm Stevens down and said he was on his way to call "Nick" to discuss the damage to Stevens's car.
Documents show Stevens tried to push her way up the stairs, shoving Losier against a TV and coffee table. Curtis returned with a gun in one hand and a cellphone in the other.
When Losier left the two alone and went back upstairs to her bedroom, she heard between two and five gunshots coming from downstairs.
Autopsy results found multiple gunshot wounds to Stevens's chest and abdomen, which caused lethal bleeding. She also had multiple illicit drugs in her system.
When Losier came back downstairs to see what happened, she saw Stevens lying on the floor, begging for help.
Still holding onto the gun, Curtis ordered Losier to pack a bag. He told her they were going to Miramichi. He then made some phone calls to people saying, "I need help" and "I'm coming to the Miramichi."
Curtis was "white as a ghost" and crying when he told Losier he shot and killed Stevens.
But with the help of a friend, whose name was not mentioned in the documents, Curtis moved Stevens's body to the basement, while Losier smoked drugs and packed a bag upstairs.
Losier told police they were high on crystal meth and Curtis was snorting pills.
Body wrapped in blankets, plastic bags
The duo slept at a friends' place that night and returned for the body the next morning, although Losier refused to go back inside the building. They also brought an undisclosed number of guns with them.
Curtis packed Stevens's body into a large hockey bag. Her body had been wrapped in hospital blankets with a yellow cord and plastic bags held together with red tuck tape.
Her body was placed in the trunk of Losier's Saturn Ion.
They were on their way to Miramichi when Curtis stopped the vehicle on a dirt road off Highway 8 near Blackville, where Curtis left the hockey bag on the dirt road.
Afterward, they stayed together at Curtis's parents' home in Miramichi. There, Curtis told his mom that he shot someone and that person died.
While they were there, the Regent Street apartment where Stevens died was also set on fire.
At the time, Fredericton police said Stevens's death was considered a homicide, and the house fire was connected to her death.
A sentencing hearing for Stevens will be held in Fredericton on Feb. 21.
