A Winnipeg man who fatally shot five people in a rooming house has been found guilty of five counts of second-degree murder.
A Court of King’s Bench jury came back with the verdict in the case of Jamie Felix just hours after being sequestered to deliberate Thursday afternoon.
Audible sighs were heard in the packed courtroom as the verdicts were read out. Felix showed no emotion.
He had pleaded not guilty to the 2023 killings that occurred at a rooming house in the West Broadway building that had basically degenerated into a drug den.
Court heard police were called to the multi-unit building early in the morning on Nov. 26, 2023, to find five people had been shot. Two victims were pronounced dead at the scene, and two others died in hospital.
Marko, the fifth victim, died last year after spending 18 months in hospital. Court heard from a medical expert that Marko died from pneumonia linked to being shot three times.
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The jury heard conflicting theories about who pulled the trigger.
The Crown argued Felix was driven by paranoia after spending days drinking and smoking crack at the house.
Crown prosecutor Chantal Boutin told court Felix became uncomfortable at the home and believed people were acting strange. He tried to ask for more information from his father and brother, who were also in the suite, but received no answers, said Boutin.
Court heard Felix’s father and brother were associated with a gang that operated the drug den in the rooming house, but that Felix had no gang ties himself.
Felix’s brother provided the man with a bulletproof vest and a handgun, which led Felix to grow concerned he was being used as “muscle” because of his military background.
Accounts from those closest to Felix detailed a loving person who took pride in his military training and was in college to further his education. When Felix’s twin brother, Johnathen, died in a drug deal gone wrong, he turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, Mary Felix said about her son.
Felix’s former girlfriend of three years testified that Felix had confessed to the killings and admitted that he tried to shoot himself with the same gun afterward, but there weren’t any bullets left.
Felix’s lawyer, however, pointed to Felix’s late father as the trigger man. Theodore Mariash suggested to the jury that Felix’s father was intent on robbing the suite and planned to set up his son to take the fall.
The trial heard that the father died in January.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
