Manitoba man extradited in New Jersey cold case homicide has history of violence in U.S., judge says

WARNING: This story contains details about violence.

A man living in Winnipeg who was extradited to New Jersey last week after being linked to a decades-old cold case homicide has a long history of violence on both sides of the border.

Robert Creter, 60, agreed at a court hearing Wednesday to stay in custody in New Jersey.

Creter was arrested in Winnipeg in June and extradited to New Jersey on Nov. 26 after he was charged with first-degree murder in the 1997 killing of 23-year-old Tamara Tignor last year.

Somerset County Judge Angela Borkowski said he has a long rap sheet in the United States, with 16 indictable offences from 1992 to 1999, including aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault, terroristic threats and theft.

"While charges were pending, he left the United States for Canada," she said Wednesday in court.

He was homeless in Winnipeg in the nine months before his arrest, moving between shelters, and he had no fixed address or phone number, Borkowski said. Creter should remain in custody because he would be a high flight risk if released, she said.

The murder charge against Creter has not yet been tested in court. His next court date is Jan. 17.

Mike McLaughlin, a Somerset County assistant prosecutor, said Monday that Creter moved to Manitoba in early 2002 and remained in the province until last month. He was born in Canada but was adopted and moved to New Jersey when he was young.

Tignor was last seen getting into an orange van in the city of Newark in the early hours of Nov. 4, 1997, McLaughlin said.

DNA collected from Tignor's body — which was found about 12 hours later on a dirt access road near Washington Valley Park, more than 40 kilometres away from Newark — linked Creter to her killing last year, he said.

Investigators also connected Creter — who was working as a day labourer in Bridgewater, N.J., when Tignor's body was found — to an orange van, McLaughlin said.

Canupawakpa Dakota Nation, a First Nation just over 30 kilometres south of the town of Virden in southwestern Manitoba, confirmed to CBC News that Creter is a registered member of the community.

Creter's court hearings in Canada have shed light on his life after he fled the United States.

In August 2002, Creter pleaded guilty to one count of assault and two counts of assault causing bodily harm after two men and a woman were injured at a Virden home the month before, according to court recordings reviewed by CBC News.

The two men had been drinking with Creter when they started "roughhousing" with each other, a prosecutor said in a Virden courtroom.

Creter's future looked bright: judge

One of the men said Creter got "increasingly rough while wrestling, striking him several times," the prosecutor said. The fighting stopped when Creter went upstairs, but the man said he found Creter on top of the second man and "pummelling him viciously" after following him up.

When a girlfriend of one of the men got to the home and asked Creter what he had done, he punched her in the face and left, court heard.

The second man needed numerous stitches to close severe lacerations on his head. The other man also required stitches to close a gash over his eye, and the woman's face was bruised, the prosecutor said.

A joint recommendation led to a two-month jail sentence for Creter, atop two years of probation.

Creter was concerned about retaliation from the assault victims and fled to British Columbia at the end of 2002, he told a Manitoba provincial court judge in Virden in June 2005, where he pleaded guilty to breaching the terms of his probation order.

"I do apologize for leaving. I should have reported wherever I went, but that wasn't on my mind," he said.

Creter was working with a moving company in Virden at that point, and court heard that he had a high school diploma and spent two years in an electrician program.

His boss wrote a letter to the judge, saying Creter was a "vital part of my crew, a faithful employee, and I would regret losing him for any amount of time."

His probation order was extended by six months and he was fined $100.

"The future looks quite bright for you," the judge told Creter.

Creter returned to court in Winnipeg in 2011, pleading guilty to two counts of disobeying a court order and two counts of failing to comply with the conditions of his release, which required him to live at Siloam Mission, a Winnipeg shelter, and to abstain from alcohol.

'The problem is me'

"I've been battling with alcohol and crack cocaine, cocaine [for] most of my adult life, and pretty much never had anybody to answer to," Creter told Manitoba provincial court Judge Lynn Stannard in 2011.

"I'm a working guy. I'm not making any excuses. I've always worked, but I've always been on my own."

Creter breached a protective order filed by his ex-girlfriend in 2008. In one instance, he drunkenly scaled the front of her home in the William Whyte neighbourhood, banged on the windows to get her attention and got stuck on the roof, court heard.

They had been in a relationship for about three years, but it ended in May 2008. Creter said it was one of the longest relationships he'd ever had.

He was convicted of assault in British Columbia in 2006, and given a suspended sentence and a year of probation, Stannard said. Creter's ex-girlfriend said in her application for the protective order that he was charged after he pushed and choked her.

Court also heard that Creter was found unconscious under the Disraeli Freeway bridge in 2009, and was still intoxicated from alcohol when he awoke.

"Obviously, the underlying thread in all of these events [is] his level of intoxication," a prosecutor said.

Judge Stannard described Creter as an intelligent and well-spoken man who seemed to want to work on his addictions. He was given a suspended sentence and one year of probation.

"The problem is me, so I'm working on me and my relationship with God now, but that doesn't take away from anything I've done now," Creter said.