Police looking for lost dog find domestic abuser instead

Police looking for a lost dog on Highway 44 at West Hawk Lake instead found a woman in distress and her abuser.

Yuriy Matkivskyy, 27, pleaded guilty in Steinbach court Jan. 24 to two separate domestic assaults and a breach of his order to have no contact with the victim.

Falcon Beach RCMP pulled the female victim over as Matkivskyy was walking ahead on Sept. 3, 2023. The officers thought the couple was related to a call they got about a lost dog.

The woman said they were not looking for a dog. That is when the officers noticed she had a black eye and that there was a crack in the windshield near the driver’s door that looked like someone had hit it.

When asked by the police, she told them that Matkivskyy hit her and the windshield. She also told them that she had a restraining order against him.

Matkivskyy had cuts on his right hand around his knuckles. He was arrested for assault, breach of his no contact order, and mischief to the vehicle. The mischief was stayed as part of the plea deal.

The woman was arrested for impaired driving and both were brought to the detachment.

The woman started to tell what happened but after hearing Matkivskyy in the neighbouring cell, stopped in fear.

Matkivskyy admitted to police that he hit the woman in the eye with a cell phone and punched the windshield.

He was also asked about the chunks of long hair on the passenger side of the vehicle. At first he said the victim lost hair all the time, but eventually admitted he probably ripped it out.

Matkivskyy’s other conviction this day was for an assault on the same woman nearly a year earlier on Oct. 15, 2022 near Selkirk. His charge of assault with a weapon was changed to assault as part of the plea deal.

On that day around 3 p.m., Selkirk RCMP were called to an assault in the RM of St. Clements.

They were told that around 9 a.m. Matkivskyy started to push the woman he had been dating for a year against the wall, stomped on her stomach, dragged her by the hair, put a screwdriver against her neck and said he would kill her.

Police went to Matkivskyy’s home where he told police he was an alcoholic and would turn himself in later. He did not and Selkirk police could not find him again. A warrant was issued for his arrest, was found and released.

He had been in custody since Nov. 23 after he skipped court on other charges and was eventually tracked down in Winnipeg for breaching court orders. He had received bail just a month earlier.

Matkivskyy pleaded guilty Jan. 9 to two other breaches including contacting a different woman he was in a new domestic relationship with, but for the purpose of sentencing in Steinbach he was treated as though he had no criminal record because of the order the charges were laid.

That combined with the fact the victim was impaired at West Hawk Lake and the Crown was not sure they could get her to testify resulted in the plea deal that Judge Tony Cellitti agreed to.

The Ukrainian-born Matkivskyy received time served, his 73 days counting as 110 under enhanced credit pre-sentencing rules. He also got 12 months supervised probation with a weapons prohibition, and is to have no contact with his victim.