An emotionally-fraught Deborah Doonanco took the stand in her own defence last week in St.
An emotionally-fraught Deborah Doonanco took the stand in her own defence last week in St. Paul court, describing a dark history of physical and verbal violence and drug use that ended with her shooting her common-law husband, Kevin Feland, on May 25, 2014.
“I was horrified - I just shot the man I loved. I truly felt I was going to die,&” she cried, recalling the events of the night. “I didn't know what was happening. I hadn't eaten for six days. It was surreal. It was like I was watching someone else in a horror movie.&”
Doonanco grew up in a close-knit family, the only child to Johnnie and Mary Doonanco. Her father was well known in the area, as the longest-serving mayor in Canada, at four decades.
She went on to become a teacher in Bonnyville, saying, “I loved it, because the kids loved you. I enjoyed making them smile, learn . . . that teaching moment. I just loved teaching.&”
After more than two decades of teaching, however, she found herself getting worn out and depressed. Her doctor diagnosed her with severe depression and anxiety, prescribing her medication and sleeping pills, and she began substitute-teaching, rather than working full-time.
Around this time, in 2012, Feland started to pursue her. The two had been married years before, but divorced after a relationship that Doonanco testified was marred by violence.
“He said he would never hurt me again, he wouldn't cheat, wouldn't call me a dumb c--- . . . he would be a better man, everything I wanted.&”
The pair began dating, and Doonanco remembered that in those first winter months together, Feland would haul in wood, light a fire, and would suggest the two have dinner together at the table “like a real family.&”
“I hadn't been held or touched in so long. I just wanted that companionship,&” she said.
Everything seemed to be going beautifully with the couple, but eventually, the fissures in the relationship would emerge.
“He started to introduce crack to my house, to me,&” she said, adding he was very calm and in control when he first used in front of her, promising it would not be an issue in their relationship. But as he grew more comfortable in her home, he moved from using the drug a handful of times in a month to daily.
“I said, this is my Baba's house; she's turning over in her grave,&” said a tearful Doonanco, recalling her grandmother had been a religious woman. “I don't want you using crack in here . . . you're turning it into a crack, smoky, disgusting house.&”
The drug use made Feland paranoid, she testified, adding he would walk around the house and repeatedly look through the window, saying, “‘The RCMP is outside.' I said, ‘Kevin, no one's there.' He was seeing things that weren't there.&”
At other times, he would be walking around looking for people outside in his socks in -40 degree weather, with his nose running and his body shaking, she said.
Along with the paranoia, Feland would get angry with her and curse her repeatedly as a “a waste of skin, useless, a dumb c---,&” or kick her or threaten to kill her and her family or have them killed.
“He was just getting out of control, his paranoia, everything. I didn't know who this man was,&” she said. However, to the outside world, the pair played the part of the happy couple.
“Nobody knew anything . . . because I was embarrassed, and I wanted to protect my parents.&”
Doonanco said she asked him to leave repeatedly, even offering him $75,000 with the plan of selling the house, in the desperate hope he would finally leave.
“This isn't working. I want my house back - I'm scared of you,&” she told him.
Feland had told her he was not going anywhere until he had enough money to move, she said, “And until I move, I'm going to make every day of yours a living hell.&”
“I couldn't eat, sleep, think, function, talk to anyone. I was so weak - I was sick of being sick,&” she said, adding she lived in fear of Feland.
Her body was in revolt, and she could barely eat a cracker without her stomach churning, she said, while the noise and smell of Feland's crack use kept her awake at night. During the night, he would circle the house with a weapon, such as a scissors, a butcher knife or one of the few rifles in the house.
“If I ever slept, it wasn't peaceful. You can't sleep when you're terrified,&” she said.
On the night of Glendon School's graduation, Feland was upset and agitated not to be going to grad, with his niece among the students graduating, Doonanco said.
By about midnight, Doonanco thought she'd lie down. She went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and slid her sleeping pills into her pocket. Feland came up behind her very suddenly, grabbed her and shoved his black dirty fingers down her mouth, looking for the sleeping pills, which she told him she hadn't taken.
“He says, ‘You're lying, you're lying! Don't f--- with me.' I could not breathe,&” she said. “I begged him to go away, and finally he let go.&”
For the rest of the night, she stayed in her bedroom with the doors closed, but could see Feland walking around the house again and again, before a shot rang out.
“I heard the loudest noise of my life - I knew it was close by me. It just paralyzed me, I couldn't move - I was never so scared in my whole entire life.&”
Beresh asked how this affected her, at which point, Doonanco dissolved into sobs, hunched over the witness stand.
“I lost everything I worked for - I lost my freedom, my sanity, my work, my home . . . He turned it into a crackhouse. I had nothing. Nothing! I was terrified and I was afraid to fight back for my own home.&”
Beresh asked why Doonanco had not called 911, and she testified feeling that it wouldn't help, that Feland had no fear of the law.
“He was taking everything I loved because he had nothing left.&”
As daylight approached after what Doonanco had described as a night of terror and tension, things seemed calmer.
“The house was still, there was no noise - it was silent, complete silence.&”
She went out to see where Feland was, and walked to the living room, where he was watching TV with no volume, a glazed expression on his face.
“He looked at me. We stared at each other. I was terrified. I wanted him to leave,&” said Doonanco. “I said, Kevin, you need to leave; you need to find another place because I can't take this kind of life any more.&”
He said, ‘No you dumb bitch. It's time for you to die,'&” she testified, saying he leaned over to reach for the barrel of a gun lying on the coffee table. “He was going to kill me. It happened so fast - I grabbed the gun, the handle, and I shot him.&”
“I honestly thought he was going to kill me. I just relive this all the time, I'm tired,&” she cried.
She recalled Feland fell back on the couch but was still making noises, and that she cocked the gun again and shot him before running outside.
“I was totally destroyed. I couldn't believe what just happened,&” said Doonanco, adding she placed the gun underneath the shed in the backyard. “It was like I was outside of my body . . . I was in shock, this was not me.&”
As the moments of Feland's death were described, listeners on both sides of the courtroom wiped their eyes and cried.
Doonanco testified she took a jerry can and poured the liquid out and lit it, and when asked why she did this, shook as she said, - “Because I wanted someone to come help me, I need help!&”
The days of being arrested, charged and taken to Edmonton remand centre were horrifying, being in a grungy cell, stripped and searched and watched as she showered, she said.
“No one to talk to, explain anything - you're alone,&” she cried, whimpering, “Mom,&” as she looked at her visibly upset mother and father, seated in the front of the courtroom.
Beresh asked what the effect of the arrest and her charge of second-degree murder has had on her in the last two years, as she has waited for this trial.
“I haven't smiled. It's been a nightmare. I suffer from nightmares severely,&” she said, shaking her head. “I have no life.&”
