Friends remember 89-year-old St. Boniface stabbing victim

Friends respond to sentencing in Dykens case Neighbours of Dorothy Dykens, an elderly woman who was stabbed to death in 2015, spoke about their former friend on Sunday.

Friends are remembering 89-year-old Dorothy Dykens following the sentencing of a Manitoba woman who pleaded guilty to manslaughter for stabbing the senior 68 times.

On Wednesday, 37-year-old Melissa Joyce Gabriel was sentenced to 12 years in prison for stabbing Dykens. Gabriel previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter. She will spend nine years and nine months in prison going forward after getting credit for time already served.

Friend Nina Kaczmarek lived near Dykens on the same street in St. Boniface.

Kaczmarek described Dykens as a woman who mostly kept to herself, and was generous.

She said the 89-year-old was originally from Nova Scotia, was not married, and had no children. She said she worked as a food inspector and bought her home on Tremblay Street with cash in the 1940s.

Kaczmarek and Dykens developed a friendship over the years. Kaczmarek said Dykens nicknamed their friendship ‘Meals on Wheels’.

“She was the meals, and I was the wheels,” she said in a phone interview with CTV News from her new home east of Winnipeg. “I would drive and she would pay for the food.”

READ MORE: Stabbing Winipeg senior 68 times nets 'ticking time bomb' 12 years behind bars.

Kaczmarek also rented a room for Gabriel.

“I’m doing okay, I really am,” Kaczmarek said. “She has to pay for her crime. My biggest hope is that she will get some help.”

Kaczmarek said people who lived on Tremblay Street had a service in Happyland Park after Dykens passed away so neighbours could say goodbye. She said Dykens didn’t want a funeral and was cremated.

Letícia Vasconcelos is from Brazil and was an exchange student in Winnipeg between September 2014 and January 2015.

Vasconcelos said learning about Dykens’ death came as a shock.

“Oh my God, it can’t happen,” she said on the phone from Brazil Sunday. “I loved that street. I don’t want to think about the tragedy on that street. It was really really sad.”

While in Winnipeg, Vasconcelos, Kaczmarek, and Dykens went out for dinner every Tuesday.

“She was a person who had stories to tell, and it was very fun,” said Vasconcelos.

She said Dykens also had a sense of humour.

“She always had news about the neighbourhood, what the local cat was doing… When I was coming back to Brazil, she said, ‘you are the first teenager, I didn’t want to punch in the face every time you open your mouth,’” she said. “I laughed so hard.”

She said Dykens also gave her a card with her phone number in case she ever needed anything.

Vasconcelos said it’s hard to react to Gabriel’s sentence because she is not familiar with the Canadian justice system, but said 12 years seemed to come up short.

“I don’t think it’s a long time,” she said. “I hope the woman (Gabriel) gets help.”