Police in Victoria have apprehended an escaped psychiatric patient from Manitoba and are sending him back to Winnipeg.

Earl Joey Wiebe, 23, was on a medical visit to Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre when he fled from two medical escorts on Sept. 27.

Earl Joey Wiebe, 23, escaped from custody on Sept. 27. He was taken into custody Wednesday in Victoria.
(Winnipeg Police Service)

Police launched a nationwide search and warned that Wiebe was violent, dangerous and at risk of offending again.

Wiebe's lawyer, Greg Brodsky, told CBC News on Wednesday that the fugitive had contacted him the day before. At that time, Brodsky told Wiebe to turn himself in.

"The main thing that everyone should know is that Mr. Wiebe is in custody. He turned himself in as he should have," Brodsky said.

"He's going to be returned to the courts to be dealt with, and I think that the concern that people had should be alleviated at this point."

Not criminally responsible

Wiebe was found not criminally responsible for killing his stepmother, Candis Moizer, in 2000. The woman's throat had been slit and her bedroom set on fire.

At the time of his escape, Wiebe was in the custody of two unarmed medical escorts from the Selkirk Mental Health Centre, just north of Winnipeg, where he had been a patient in the facility's high-security wing. He was not shackled or handcuffed at the time of his escape.

The hospital has since changed its policy on potentially dangerous offenders being taken outside the facility. It now has the authority to ask provincial sheriff's officers to take patients in handcuffs to outside appointments, if the patient poses a risk to public safety.

Wiebe's mother, Alma Brown, issued a plea last week for her son to turn himself in and said she didn't think he would cause harm.

"I don't believe for a minute that you are out to hurt anyone — but most people don't know you like I do," she wrote in her statement to Wiebe. "I love you and I miss you, son."

The town of Niverville, located south of Winnipeg, had prepared for the possibility that Wiebe could return to his hometown by increasing RCMP presence around town and boosting security at its local schools.