(CANADA)
Winnipeg Free Press [Winnipeg MB, Canada]
November 28, 2024
By Tyler Searle
Woman accusing former rural Manitoba priest of repeated sex assaults when she was a child confronted him more than a half-century later
More than 50 years after she says she was sexually assaulted by a church leader in rural Manitoba, Shelley Trubiak filed a report with the RCMP and then confronted the man, who was later charged.
The angry encounter took place at a furniture store in Regina, where former priest Constantin Turcoane made his living after leaving the church, she said.
“I was scared nothing was going to be done about the report I filed, and so I confronted him about what he did to me,” Trubiak, 66, said Thursday, recalling the summer day in 2022 when she walked into Turcoane’s business.
“That took a lot of weight off of me. I told him, ‘I hope you burn in hell.’”
Trubiak, who had filed a formal complaint with police months earlier, said she was victimized by the priest numerous times when she was about 12 years old when her family lived in Lennard — a small community about 300 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.
Turcoane turned himself in to police in August after a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of rape and sexual intercourse under 14. He was released pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.
RCMP said he was a priest at the St. Elijah Romanian Orthodox Church in Lennard in the early 1970s, when the offences are alleged to have occurred.
The charges against the 81-year-old have not been tested in court.
A woman who answered the phone at the furniture store Thursday confirmed Trubiak went to the store in 2022 and there was a dispute, but said the accusations against Turcoane are false.
Darren Kraushaar, the Saskatchewan lawyer who represents Turcoane, said his client denies the allegations and intends to plead not guilty if the case proceeds to trial.
“This is about setting me free — these demons that I have inside me — so that I can live my life in peace.”–Shelley Trubiak
Pre-trial arrangements are being worked out in the Manitoba court system, and Trubiak said she is bracing for a difficult road ahead.
“This is about setting me free — these demons that I have inside me — so that I can live my life in peace,” she said. “I want to tell my story; It’s an ugly story.… It has tormented me for all these years.”
Trubiak said she remembers playing hide-and-seek with friends near the church while adults were inside cleaning it. She alleged Turcoane took it as an opportunity to grope her chest.
“The first time he grabbed me, he was squeezing me so tight,” she said.
She said she used to babysit Turcoane’s daughter. He would frequently submit her to unwanted touching and other sexual acts in his home and at church, she said.
“What he did to me, telling me, ‘Father loves you’ and ‘God is good’ and all this, I believed that I wasn’t doing anything bad,” she said sobbing.
“We were religious farm kids, we didn’t know anything about sex.”
Trubiak said she told her mother about what was happening to her. When the issue was raised in the church and community, nobody believed her and she was treated as a pariah. She eventually left the church.
Trubiak’s experience caused her to lash out in her teenage years, experimenting with drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, she said.
She said she ran away from home on several occasions, spent time living in foster care and tried to take her own life.
She has been plagued by flashbacks for years, but learned to cope with her trauma through counselling and with the support of her family.
“That’s not me,” she said, looking back. “That was a little girl that was running from people that made her feel ugly and shameful.
“I have nothing to hide.”
Trubiak said she hopes speaking out will give others the strength to speak out.
RCMP have said Turcoane was arrested after two years of searching for possible witnesses, taking multiple statements and obtaining a search warrant to access historic church records that were stored in Toronto.
Trubiak said she wrote to officials with the Romanian Orthodox church in 2008 regarding her allegations about Turcoane and requested any record of other allegations against him. She said she was told records related to his time at St. Elijah were destroyed in a flood.
The Free Press was unable to independently verify that information.
The Orthodox Church in America responded to a request for comment Thursday but did not answer questions about Turcoane or say whether it received Trubiak’s letter.
Archpriest Alexander Rentel said the church “laments the sin of sexual misconduct and abuse” and has been co-operating fully with the RCMP investigation.
RCMP have said they believed there are others with information about the alleged incidents and urged them to reach out to police.
“We have not had any other victims come forward. However, further witnesses did reach out, which was helpful for investigators,” RCMP said in an email statement when asked for an update Thursday.
Jessica Bihun, a lawyer who is helping with Turcoane’s defence, and Crown prosecutor Melanie Cannon appeared before Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta in provincial court Wednesday.
They agreed to meet again on Dec. 10 for a case-management conference in which the lawyers will outline how they intend to proceed.
Another court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 26.