Thunder Bay man sentenced for the brutal murder of his stepmother

Cameron Adomko, 44, was a drug addict at the time of the murder in June 2023 in Thunder Bay. (Facebook)

A Thunder Bay man will have to spend at least 17 years in jail for the second-degree murder of his stepmother, Darlene Giba, in June 2023.

Cameron Adomko, 44, was a drug addict at the time of the grisly murder. Giba died from a deep stab wound to her neck.

According to the Superior Court of Justice decision, she had been married to Adomko’s father, Gary, for more than 30 years.

Giba and Adomko’s father had been struggling to deal with Cameron’s drug addiction and what they could do to help him.

The night before the murder, Adomko had stayed at the apartment of Johanna Sonego on Lincoln Street. He didn’t know her well, but the next morning, he told her that he was going to see Giba and get some money so they could buy drugs.

Planned to get money for drugs

They left Sonego’s apartment around 9:19 a.m., with Adomko already carrying a yellow object in his pocket that he would use to commit the murder.

He is seen on video surveillance footage at 9:56 a.m. walking toward the garage at Gilba’s home and he is then seen backing her car down the driveway.

“It was determined that the murder of Ms. Giba took place sometime between 9:37 a.m. and 9:56 a.m.,” the court said.

Exactly what transpired was never determined, with Adomko claiming that Sonego committed the murder, while Sonego testified for the Crown at Adomko’s trial.

“For the purposes of sentencing, I must accept that it was Mr. Adomko that inflicted the fatal wound to Ms. Giba,” Justice Robin A. Lepere wrote in her decision.

The evidence and crime scene photos “were particularly gruesome and disturbing,” she added.

“I am satisfied, based on the evidence presented at trial, that the fatal wound was inflicted to Ms. Giba while she lay on the floor on her back.”

Cleaned vehicle with bleach

After the murder, Adomko stole money from the home and he and Sonego tried to hide evidence, putting bloody clothes and the murder weapon into a garbage bag and cleaning Giba’s car with bleach.

“While this was a parent/child relationship rather than a spousal relationship, the relationship is one where Ms. Giba was vulnerable to Mr. Adomko as she would have answered the door when Mr. Adomko attended at her home and perhaps even invited him in,” the judge wrote.

“There was no evidence of forced entry into the home. It is not disputed that Mr. Adomko abused a position of trust when committing this murder.”

He had been unemployed since the COVID-19 pandemic, having worked before as a dishwasher, a roofer and carpenter. While he was an alcoholic before COVID, he developed a crack cocaine addiction in the years following.

Adomko was on probation at the time of the murder for an assault conviction for throwing water on his spouse. While he “expressed remorse and acknowledged responsibility” for the murder, he still maintained it was Sonego who was guilty of the crime.

In victim impact statements, friends and family said Giba was a kind and compassionate person, someone who tried to help her stepson “even during the worst times of his addiction when no one else would.”

“They are now all haunted by this traumatic killing and will never understand how Mr. Adomko could have taken the life of such a beautiful person,” the court said.

She was a primary caregiver to her brother, David, who is developmentally delayed and lives in a group home in Thunder Bay. He is “devastated” by the loss of his sister and is now alone in the city, since other siblings live elsewhere.

Her son spoke of how he is crushed by the fact that his own children are now without their grandmother and that he is “unable to come to terms with the loss of his mother.”

His father, Gary, said he was looking forward to joining his wife in retirement and to spending the rest of his life with her. Since the murder, he has started drinking again after two decades of sobriety.

‘Deeply affected’ her loved ones

“These statements demonstrate that Ms. Giba was a loving and caring mother, sister, grandmother, wife and friend,” Lepere wrote in her decision.

“The loss of her life and warm presence has deeply affected all those who knew and loved her.”

While the Crown sought 20 years before Adomko would be eligible for parole, the defence suggested 15 years.

While the Crown argued that deterrence should be a prime factor, considering the murder was related to the drug trade, the defence argued that Adomko had a limited criminal history and had serious addiction issues at the time.

In her decision, Lepere said that the maximum sentence has been 12-17 years in cases of second-degree murder of a partner, parent or child.

“Mr. Adomko should certainly be at the high end of the applicable range established in Ontario when all of the above factors are considered,” she said, in settling on 17 years.

Read the full decision here.