Guilty Verdicts

While I was still living in Brazil my dad and brother were victims of a home invasion. It has been quite the nightmare for them and the rest of my family. They were in court last week to testify in the trial against the two men who forced entry into their home and attacked them. Below you can read what was printed in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix or it can be found online here. Please note that there is a typo, my brother is 29 years old, not 23.

Guilty verdicts in violent home invasion

Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix

Published: Friday, April 25, 2008

Two Saskatoon men who committed a drunken, violent home invasion at a rural residence nearly three years ago will be sentenced in June.

William Kominetsky, 39, and Thomas Johnson, 31, were found guilty Thursday of break and enter and committing the indictable offences of assault causing bodily harm and assault, respectively.

The intruders demanded money and forced their way into the house, located about nine kilometres southwest of Saskatoon, where they assaulted homeowner Robert Stonehouse, 53, and his son, Dirk Stonehouse, 23.

Dirk Stonehouse holds the shovel handle used in an attack on himself and his father Robert (left) three years ago
Photograph by : Richard Marjan, The StarPhoenix

The homeowners repelled the assailants with firearms from their collection and were themselves charged with attempted murder, resulting in what the elder Stonehouse later called "your worst nightmare, 10 times over."

Justice Ian McLellan, who heard the three-day trial without a jury, recounted Thursday the harrowing events of the rainy night of June 17, 2005.

Robert Stonehouse didn't recognize the two intoxicated men who banged on his door and declared he owed one of them money for work done years before.

When they forced their way in, the elder Stonehouse hurried to call 911 but didn't get through because his son had been using dial-up Internet.

When Kominetsky approached him, the elder Stonehouse seized his .25-calibre pistol from the pocket of his armchair and warned Kominetsky to leave.

Instead, Kominetsky attacked Stonehouse, punching him in the head repeatedly. Stonehouse fell to his knees, with his upper body face down on a sofa, where Kominetsky held him and continued the blows to his head.

Court heard Stonehouse fired a warning shot into the sofa, but when it didn't slow the assault, he reached the pistol across the front of his body and fired back at Kominetsky. The bullet pierced Stonehouse's left side and entered Kominetsky's stomach.

Even that didn't stop Kominetsky's punches. Stonehouse's vision was "turning purplish," he said in an interview after court Thursday.

In the meantime, McLellan recounted in his judgment that Dirk Stonehouse was battling Johnson, who had punched him in the head. Dirk got Johnson out of the house, locked the door and ran to help his father. He punched Kominetsky in the head, but when it had no effect, he ran for a shotgun.

Before he could get it, Johnson had broken in again and attacked Dirk with the handle of a shovel he had used to break in. The pair struggled over the shovel handle before Johnson fled.

Dirk got a shotgun and warned Kominetsky, who turned and grabbed the barrel. Dirk jerked it away and, reluctant to shoot a man, struck Kominetsky in the side of the head with the barrel, at which point the shotgun discharged.

No one was hit by the blast but the elder Stonehouse said he felt the heat of it near his head.

Kominetsky finally fled and Stonehouse got through to the 911 operator.

McLellan found that Kominetsky and Johnson returned to Kominetsky's mobile home and drank beer, which McLellan found "strange" since Kominetsky had been shot. Johnson left and bought more beer. As he returned to Kominetsky's residence, he was spotted by a Saskatoon police officer who had heard a dispatch to watch for the suspects' blue and silver van.

Johnson ran into the house with the beer and out the back door. Police talked to Kominetsky, who was wrapped in a blanket and didn't say anything about being shot. Later, that city constable returned with two RCMP officers and they found Johnson in a bedroom at Kominetsky's. Kominetsky then revealed his wound.

In an interview after court, the Stonehouses recalled their experience.

Robert Stonehouse said when Kominetsky and Johnson were arrested, they told police he had invited them to the house and then tried to kill them.

The Stonehouses were arrested and each was charged with attempted murder.

In Saskatoon RCMP cells the night of the arrest, Robert Stonehouse was suffering from the repeated blows to his head, he said. He also suffered chest pains and was hot and dehydrated. He laid on the concrete floor trying to cool off and passed out there. He was taken to Royal University Hospital three times that night, and each time was returned to RCMP cells.

Hospital staff never looked at his bullet wound, which had been dressed earlier by ambulance attendants, he said.

Father and son spent the weekend in custody, but were separated.

Three days later, when he was taken to the provincial courthouse, Robert Stonehouse could barely walk. Dirk Stonehouse was brought before a judge in the morning and the charge against him was stayed. His father remained in a courthouse holding cell for another four hours, while the family waited in the hallway.

Robert Stonehouse said courthouse staff lost his paper work and didn't know where he was. They phoned the RCMP and the jail looking for him before one of the staff looked in the room where he sat, still expecting to go before a judge.

He was unable to walk from the room and his right arm was too numb to use the crutches staff brought for him, he said.

His son and daughter had to help him walk to a chair, before they got him to a family vehicle and to the hospital.

Days later, Robert Stonehouse discovered he had suffered what a neurologist believed was a trauma-induced stroke while in custody.

Robert Stonehouse was also later charged with unsafe storage of firearms but was given an absolute discharge when the case went before a judge.

The elder Stonehouse said his health has deteriorated and his income from his building moving business has suffered.

His side business, a store selling model trains to hobbyists, has also suffered since initial, vague news reports did not make it clear Stonehouse was a victim, not a perpetrator, he said.

Stonehouse continues to try to get back thousands of dollars of property that was seized by RCMP during the initial investigation.