Warning: this story contains details of violence and sexual assault.
The death of Robert Wapuchakoos at the Regional Psychiatric Centre on April 27 concludes a story that began with a brutal slaying that sent a shock wave through Saskatchewan in the summer of 1982.
Joseph Duffy was a University of Regina education professor working on his Ph.D. at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. On June 30, 1982, a hot and sunny Wednesday, the 51-year-old was commuting home on Highway 11 to Regina in his yellow Pontiac Lemans.
About 10 kilometres south of Kenaston, Sask., 84 kilometres south of Saskatoon, Duffy came across a car broken down on the side of the road. Two women were waving for help and Duffy pulled over to give assistance.
Once he stopped, two men — Robert Ironchild and Brian Obey — emerged from the ditch where they had been hiding and overpowered Duffy.
“For his efforts he was attacked and taken at knife point, in his own car, to a farmer’s field. He was slashed with the knife and forced from his car. The four then chased him with the car and ran him over, and over,” Duffy’s son, Mike, wrote in a letter to his MP in 1997.
Ironchild drove the car for next several days before asking a relative to dispose of it.
The murder triggered a provincewide manhunt that ended one week later in Regina when the police tactical squad arrested Ironchild in a house after a two-hour standoff. At his trial in early 1983, Ironchild, then 27, was convicted of first-degree murder, thanks in part to his co-accused testifying that Ironchild was the one who stabbed Duffy and then killed him with his own car. The co-accused, Brian Obey, was later stabbed to death in Regina.
Former Saskatchewan premier Allan Blakeney and Saskatchewan Chief Justice Edward Bayda served as honourary pallbearers at Duffy’s funeral. Duffy had been on the national executive of the Canadian Council of Teachers of English since 1975, and on the executive of the Saskatchewan Opera Guild.
Ironchild was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. While in prison in Drumheller, Alta., he changed his name to Robert Wapuchakoos.
Wapuchakoos was released on full parole in 2007. In 2022, he was re-arrested and placed at the Regional Psychiatric Centre on an indeterminate sentence.
Wapuchakoos died at the Saskatoon prison hospital on April 27 of apparent natural causes, according to the Correctional Service of Canada. He was 69.
A pattern of trouble
Parole Board of Canada documents detail how Wapuchakoos never really fully re-integrated into society after serving his 25-year sentence.
He was released on day parole in 2005 and then full parole in 2007. He was brought back in and released again twice from 2009 to 2013.
“In 2014, you were arrested and returned to custody and your release was eventually revoked,” the documents said.
“You admitted to overdosing on pain medication and ‘blacking out.'”
Wapuchakoos was granted his second full parole in 2019 with a handful of specific conditions, including staying within 55 kilometres of the Piapot First Nation, 30 kilometres northeast of Regina.
“Documentation indicates you struggled in the community,” the parole board noted.
He smoked marijuana without a prescription, planned to buy a car in violation of his conditions, “and you were also reported to keep a kitchen knife nearby when talking to people such as your parole supervisor.”
Formal warnings to change his behaviour were issued, but his release was not suspended until May 2022. That’s when police told his parole supervisor that he was under investigation for three sexual assault allegations involving “three elderly women with diminished mental capacity due to dementia.”
Wapuchakoos was taken back into custody and placed in an all-male care facility, but was moved after complaints of inappropriate behaviour toward female staff.
He was eventually moved to the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon on an indeterminate sentence, because “it is the Board’s opinion that you will present an undue risk to society if released on full parole.”
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.
