You take it personally, maybe that’s not a good way to look at it, but you do take it personally.
—Mandee Kulaway
For nearly five years, Tammy Lynn Kulaway’s family kept quiet about her death at the hands of ex-boyfriend Richard Lesann, the family’s ensuing and seemingly endless nightmare, and a justice system they feel let them down at every turn. Now, following news that Lesann has received a conditional discharge from Saskatchewan Hospital to live on his own in the Battlefords, Mandee (Amanda) Kulaway, the youngest of three sisters with Tammy and Tracy, breaks the silence. In a wide-ranging interview with Yorkton This Week staff writer Thom Barker, Mandee and her fiancée Marcel Roussin, reflect on Tammy, her dog Sam whom Lesann also killed, a troubled and troubling relationship between killer and victim, the NCR (not criminally responsible) verdict, Lesann’s imminent release, unresolved fears and ongoing healing. What follows is the family’s story.
On the morning of March 12, 2011, Tammy Kulaway got a call. Rick Lesann was acting irrationally. Tammy was the one person who could reach him. She responded. It is what she always did.
“The only person that stood through and true with Rick was Tammy,” Mandee said. “She gave up a lot to try to help him; that’s just the type of person Tammy was. She feared that if something ever happened to him, she would have to live with that guilt, because there was no one else to help him and that’s why she was called that morning, I believe, because people knew Tammy knew how to talk Rick down, how to compromise with him, how to get him out of irrational thinking and if he was having a behaviour problem.”
When Tammy responded that morning, however, there was no talking to Lesann, according to a witness who testified at trial. Richard Lesann brutally stabbed Tammy to death and beheaded her beloved dog Sam.
“When we found out what happened, we were at a hockey tournament in Melville where the RCMP found us,” Mandee recalled. “They put me and [Tracy] in different rooms and one of the first things out of my mouth was: ‘He did it, he actually did it’.”
It was a horrific realization, but not necessarily surprising, in retrospect.
“It came as a shock because you don’t ever expect a murder of someone, but there were other events that we were afraid for her, as her sisters.”
It left them with guilt that still, even as the fifth anniversary of Tammy’s death approaches in less than three weeks, crops up from time to time.
“We had conflicts with ourselves, like maybe there were some things that should have been reported, but we left it at, she had the better judgment, she knew him better.
“We never got to say anything, we knew the story, we knew the fear, we knew a lot of stuff that Tammy told confidentially to her sisters, we knew. Did we go every day thinking maybe we should have reported it, maybe we should have just put everything aside and do something and risk losing that sister bond with Tammy? Yes, but she never portrayed fear. She said she wasn’t scared of Rick; I don’t know if maybe she was just being the big sister and didn’t want to scare us.”
Marcel recounted just one harrowing incident that made the family fearful.
“There was one week when Baba, Tammy’s mom, was sick and Tammy went to go spend the week with her,” he said. “Rick came to the house and was standing outside the house screaming that he wished Baba was dead because Baba was taking [Tammy’s] attention away from Rick.
“We feared for her, we always told her and she’d always say, ‘don’t worry, I have my angels looking out for me’.”
Even after the killing, their mother remained strong, although she ultimately did not make it to the end of the trial.
There were many other incidents. For example, Mandee and Marcel refused on another occasion to send their children to stay with Aunt Tammy because Lesann was acting out, Marcel remembered.
None of that came out at trial.
“We were very disappointed with the Crown,” Mandee explained. “That was our sister, that was their aunt, that was our mother’s daughter and we just kind of wonder if it would have been different if it had been someone else, not Tammy. I mean, you don’t wish this one of their family members, but it’s tough to see. There were past incidents that happened that we felt led up to what happened, but [the system] didn’t care, they only cared about what happened March 12. Where was the fight?”
The defence also disappointed them.
“The fact that a local lawyer took on the defence; that does not sit easy with us at all. Yorkton’s a big place, but it’s not that big. Everyone knows everyone, and that we found hard.”
There were a lot of hardships along the way, including media coverage.
“It was just hurtful because it was always about Rick and Tammy was the victim and that was just sad.” Mandee explained. “She was much more than just the victim of a murder.
“We appreciated as a family that it was out there, that it wasn’t swept under the rug, that society and the community knew what was going on, but it was hard knowing that to people it was a news story, but to us it was our life,” Mandee said. “It wasn’t just what we read in the paper that week, we dealt with it 24 hours a day. We still do.”
And, there were surprises along the way.
“It was tough that a lot of times we found out things first through the media,” Mandee said, noting that because the process was so long sometimes people in the justice system who had been her sources of information ended up changing jobs or moving on creating a lack of continuity. “I had to struggle and fight and email and make phone calls to find a go-to person right from the beginning. It has not been easy. I felt we should be the first to know about any movements of Rick, like any upcoming court [appearances] or anything like that, we thought we should know and it’s been exhausting trying to find that.”
They thought the three-and-a-half years between Tammy’s death and the verdict had been awful, but it was sitting on the historic hardwood benches of Yorkton’s Court of Queen’s Bench on September 30, 2014 and listening to Madam Justice C. L. Dawson bring down a ruling of not criminally responsible (NCR) that may have been the most painful moment of all.
“It has been hell,” Mandee said. “Three-and-half years of court appearances, of things being adjourned, of going through a pre-trial. We were ecstatic when the judge ruled Rick was fit to stand trial, but going through the trial, which was dismissed early and then to wait from May 2014 until September for a decision from a judge. People don’t know how hard it was for us to go about every day.
“We had hope, we really did. We were told from the beginning the verdict could go the NCR way, but we had hope in the justice system. We never expected it to go this way, because we feel there is a story behind that day.”
And it bred a certain amount of cynicism as well.
“We were told early on by the RCMP that we don’t have a justice system in Canada, we have a legal system,” Marcel said. “We found out how true that is.”
September 30, 2014, the day of the verdict, just two days after what would have been Tammy’s 44th birthday, was so deflating, in fact, the family decided not to organize the 2015 Tam and Sam Walk Against Violence, an event they had held around Tammy’s birthday in 2011, through 2014.
“It was very hard as a family that we decided against it this year, but at that time, we weren’t emotionally able to do it,” Mandee explained. “We were very disappointed with the verdict and it pulled on the heartstrings and it was really tough to be positive about the event when we wanted the outcome to be so much more.”
They may come back to the Tam and Sam Walk, though. Mandee said the one positive thing has been the support of the community, which she called “wonderful.” One of the beneficiaries of the Tam and Sam Walk was Shelwin House, a local shelter for women and children fleeing family violence. Shelwin House dedicated its recent cookbook fundraiser to Tammy and Sam.
In short, with time and help, family members are learning to move on, but the legacy of Richard Lesann’s actions are never far from boiling over.
“There’s been extensive counseling that our family members have done,” Mandee explained. “There’s been anxiety issues. We’ve switched jobs. My sister relocated. It has really [taken] a toll on our family emotionally.
“It’s prominent and it’s evident in our lives, how we do things now, it’s that fear. We have three children that we fear for them. If there is a slight chance that Rick did fear that Tammy was the devil and then to take it out on her dog, which is a whole other story, the uncanny resemblance between us three girls as sisters and now my daughter, the resemblance to Tammy, who’s to say? I don’t believe he was ever that sick, but if he really was, who’s to say he won’t act again?
“It was tough when he was in remand, but we knew he was accountable. It was tough when we found out he was moved to the Donaldson House [a Saskatchewan Hospital halfway house in North Battleford], but it was a little bit of ease because he had to be accounted for. I didn’t think he could get from Battleford to here and back in time. Now knowing that he just has scheduled meetings and stuff like that and he’s basically free to go wherever, it’s terrifying.”
But fear is not the only unresolved issue. There is also the matter of responsibility, if not criminal then at least personal responsibility. Mandee said she does not want revenge, but she is not satisfied with the status quo either.
“I could sit here today and say I wanted Rick to get life in prison, but if you asked me honestly what I wanted to have happen to Rick, I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for that, something though. To us, he has accomplished a better life now, after five years, after murdering my sister, than he had prior. He’s had no hardship. He’s been protected. As taxpayers, we’ve paid for him for how many years to better himself because he murdered my sister?
“You take it personally, maybe that’s not a good way to look at it, but you do take it personally. Tammy deserved more. Where is her second chance? She isn’t the one who was messed up and Rick gets a second chance at life?
“I just wish things were a little bit harder for him, after what he’s done.”
Marcel was a little more blunt.
“Whatever happened to ‘you do the crime, you do the time’?” he asked. “You can tiptoe around it, but a lot of people, family and friends believe that Rick Lesann got away with murder. The value of Tammy’s life was not respected.”
And there’s another life Mandee believes was not respected.
“Poor Sammy, no one talks about Sammy,’ she said. “He was her dog; that was another story and a half. Sam was Tammy’s baby and the fact that Sam’s life went unnoticed is shameful. What Rick Lesann did to Sam was inhumane.”
Although there are a number of criminal charges available to prosecutors pertaining to cruel treatment of animals, the Crown chose not to charge Lesann with Sam’s death.
“It’s very unfortunate that people who do wrongful things to animals get more time than Rick did for doing that to an animal and for murdering my sister.”
Until now, the Kulaway family has declined to tell its side of the story. At first, they were afraid to jeopardize the Crown’s case in any way, and had been advised not to speak to the media, Mandee said. Now, with Lesann being released, even she believes the ordeal is coming to an end of sorts, although, she admits it may never really be over.
“Whenever you think you’re taking a step forward, there’s always a step back,” she said. “This could be the end, but it is a conditional discharge. I guess the next step would be absolute discharge and that might bring on a whole new onset of emotions and feelings and fears.”
Finally, there is the knowledge that, even if they learn to live with their new reality, they will never be able to accept Lesann did not know what he was doing at the time he killed Tammy Kulaway.
“The world has heard Rick’s story and I think we’re going to use this time and use our emotion and our strength in telling Tammy’s story, and how to us, NCR seems like a very sad excuse to get away with murder,” Mandee said.
“I believe it was a game well-played by Rick. I think he played the game very well, he did everything he needed to do to get to [NCR]. We have to live with this, and a decision that was not based on anything we said, for the rest of our lives.”
If there is any solace, perhaps it is hope that Tammy’s death will not be entirely without a positive influence.
“We’re getting stronger, even sitting here talking today, shows evidence that I am a stronger person,” Mandee concluded. “I feel that maybe this is what we need to do. Tammy did not get any justice, but maybe her story could be told to save someone else.”
