A guilty plea was entered Monday by one of the people who tortured and killed a woman in Calgary on Christmas Day 2016.
Tammie Howard, who was also known as Irish, was hung from the ceiling of a garage in the southeast neighborhood of Forest Lawn and hit and shot with a nail gun over and over again for 12 hours.
Natalie Vinje, who is 38 years old, was first charged with first-degree murder in Howard’s death. It was Monday that she admitted to killing.
This is what the lawyer, Donna Spaner, read out loud: an agreed statement of facts (ASF).
Thomas Evans, Vinje’s boyfriend, rented an underground apartment in Forest Lawn in 2016. At the time, the landlords were in Central America on vacation.
Wendy and Howard were friends and had known each other for a long time.
But Howard left Vinje in her car while she was visiting people at the Drumheller jail a year before. This left her there alone.
Natalie Vinje entered a plea of guilty to manslaughter on Monday, after being charged with first-degree murder in the death of Tammie Howard. (Police Service of Calgary)
At the time, Vinje also owed Evans $200 for drugs.
Nicole Vinje was mad at Evans on December 25, 2016.
To “take her mind off the fact that he was with another girl,” Evans called Vinje to tell her he had a Christmas present for her.
Person hung from rafters
Two other people and Vinje waited in the attached garage.
Evens finally showed up with Howard and two other guys.
Based on the facts of the case, he then told his friends to tie Howard up and tape her mouth shut with duct tape.
The ASF says that Scott Stimson hung Howard from a hook in the garage’s ceiling with a rope.
Weinje put on gloves and punched Howard. She told the cops that the other people had also hurt the victim.
Howard was going to die.
The ASF says that Stimson and another guy used a nail gun to hit her with nails while she was hanging.
The agreed upon facts say that Vinje knew Howard had been beaten “to a pulp.”
“They probably broke a rib and a lung collapsed or something,” she told the police officer who was on the job.
At one point, early in the morning, Vinje saw that Howard didn’t seem to be alive or breathing.
The ASF says, “Vinje thought Howard was dying.”
Howard was taken from the roof and his heart rate was very low. She passed away in the garage.
“Vinje was aware that [Howard] was a vulnerable, medically compromised, substance addicted, homeless individual,” says the ASF.
Skull of the victim found
Evans told them to clean up the garage and get rid of Howard.
The garage was cleaned, Howard’s body was put in a hockey bag, and the group drove to Gleichen, Alta., to dump her.
A fly fisherman found a head on Siksika Nation land in 2021, which was almost five years after Howard went missing. He asked the RCMP to help.
The daughter of the victim’s DNA test showed that the head was almost certainly that of Tammie Howard.
Around the Christmas break, Tammie’s mother hadn’t heard from her, so she called the Calgary Police Service and said her daughter was missing.
Vinje admits it.
After years had passed since she was last seen, cops began an undercover operation in April 2021 that lasted for about three months.
In 51 different situations, the cops were able to convince Vinje that she was part of a criminal group she could trust.
In the end, Vinje told the “Mr. Big” fake police officer that she was involved.
Vinje is the only person who has been charged with killing Howard.
Stimson died after taking too many drugs.
Howard’s parents, three adult children, and sister were all in court on Monday to hear Vinje’s plea.
Pre-sentence reports were asked for, and later this year, Court of King’s Bench Justice Jim Eamon will hear sentencing arguments from both the Crown and the defense lawyer, Andrea Urquhart.
