Police in Canada spent weeks looking for a man accused of fatally stabbing a devoted father who’d made it his life’s mission to help underserved teens.
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The victim, Ricardo Hibi, 34, grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, a young man raised in the rougher area of the city’s North End and left to look after himself, according to those who knew him best. By just 16 years old, his parents had moved away, and he lived alone until a friend’s single mother took him in as her own, an act of kindness that would help shape Hibi’s generous nature throughout the years.
Hibi graduated high school in 2002 and made the best of his circumstances, once accompanying his friend Richard Lukeweicki on a construction job. He made a go of it, and eventually, they became partners in business.
“He was successful in real estate,” Lukeweicki told Final Moments, airing Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen. “He could have retired, probably, by the time he was 45 if he would have kept at it.”
In December 2010, a mutual friend introduced Hibi to Candace Woloshyn. According to Woloshyn, the pair “hit it off,” and a year and a half later, they had a son.
“I found my forever,” Woloshyn told Final Moments. “I did. I really did.”
Hibi and Woloshyn became engaged in the winter of 2014, but first, Hibi chose to chase what Lukeweicki called Hibi’s “calling.” After visiting a group home in the city, Hibi wanted to use his construction and real estate knowledge to create a group home that could help teen boys with upbringings similar to Hibi’s.
Hibi put their wedding plans on the back burner until he signed with an agency and obtained the approval to house three teenage boys, ensuring they attended school and stayed on the straight and narrow.
Everything seemed to be on track with the group home’s success, and in December 2018, Hibi and Woloshyn proceeded with plans to marry in 2019. On the night of Dec. 16, 2018, Hibi — an avid ice hockey fan — took Woloshyn and their young son to see the Winnipeg Jets play, as captured on video and published by Final Moments.
Loved ones said hockey was Hibi’s and his son’s favorite pastime.
“He was so present in his son’s life,” said friend Agnes Sineras. “They did everything together.”
The Shocking Murder of Ricardo Hibi
Ricardo Hibi’s Death Leaves Friends in Disbelief
The following day, on Dec. 17, 2018, Hibi met Lukeweicki to assist him with a construction job. Hibi told his friend he would run an errand and return after having lunch at home.
Hibi, however, never returned, according to Sgt. John O’Donovan of the Winnipeg Police Service. At around 2:30 p.m., a lawyer phoned Winnipeg authorities, saying he’d been on the phone with Hibi when he heard a commotion on the other end.
Officers raced to “a chaotic scene” at the group home, where Hibi was clinging to life at the house entrance.
“He was stabbed three times in the chest,” Sgt. O’Donovan told Final Moments. “He [was] left for dead.”
As paramedics rushed Hibi to the hospital, police questioned two of the three boys from the group home, both of whom were upstairs in their bedrooms when the attack occurred. Back at police services, authorities with the drug and gang units ran background checks on the minor residents and looked into Hibi’s dealings with the home.
But nothing raised any red flags for investigators, according to Sgt. O’Donovan.
“Ricardo Hibi is running a really clean ship, and he’s doing everything he can to be a positive influence in these kids’ lives,” Sgt. O’Donovan told Final Moments. “They actually have a lot of respect for him and they speak very highly of him.”
Police search for a third teenager
Through the teens, police learned a third boy, known as “C.H.,” also lived at the home but was nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, at the hospital, Hibi succumbed to his injuries, making the investigation a case of homicide.
“It was a nightmare,” Hibi’s fiancée, Candace Woloshyn, told Final Moments.
Back at the crime scene, investigators found the group home was equipped with security cameras, with one capturing the entirety of the attack. The video showed someone in a black jacket walking up to the home, having a brief interaction with Hibi, then drawing a knife and stabbing Hibi to death.
The new evidence did not include audio, and because of the picture quality, police could not identify the assailant.
In hopes of finding C.H., police searched the school and place of work of the unaccounted teen, learning he was a no-show at both locations on the day of Hibi’s murder, according to Sgt. O’Donovan. But two days later, on Dec. 19, 2018, C.H. voluntarily walked into police headquarters, claiming he’d learned he was on police’s radar.
C.H. said he had nothing to do with Hibi’s homicide and, instead, spent all of Dec. 17 with his girlfriend, Trinity Moar, to work out some “relationship issues.”
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With nothing tying C.H. to the crime scene, police didn’t arrest him in connection with Hibi’s death. Detectives then paid Trinity a visit, and to their surprise, they found a blood stain on the front door.
Trinity claimed to know nothing about the blood, adding that she hadn’t seen C.H. in days and that he was not with her on the day of Hibi’s murder. Police then visited C.H. at the group home, inquiring why Trinity would poke holes in his alibi.
“C.H. tells [officers] that Trinity is mistaken, and he said that sometimes she takes medication and she forgets things,” Sgt. O’Donovan told Final Moments. “But he’s actually angry that she says that he wasn’t there because he is adamant that he was there.”
On Dec. 21, 2018, D.N.A. testing from the blood on Trinity’s door proved to be a match to victim Ricardo Hibi.
A Look Into Kane Moar
Police revisited Trinity about the revelation, but then she changed her story, claiming that on Dec. 17, she and C.H. got into a fight, citing what Sgt. O’Donovan called “a rocky relationship.”
That day, Trinity’s brother, 21-year-old Kane Moar, “became aware” of the fight and visited Trinity, unaware that C.H. “was hiding in the back room,” according to Sgt. O’Donovan.
To make her “furious” brother leave, Trinity provided Moar with the address of the group home. Moar returned a short time later with blood on his person, according to Crown Prosecutor Monique Cam.
“[Trinity] says that he shows up, she sees his hands are bloody, and she sees him in possession of a knife, and she observes there’s blood on it,” Cam told Final Moments.
When confronted with the video evidence from the crime scene, Trinity confirmed her brother, Kane Moar, wore a jacket matching the one worn by Hibi’s killer.
Canadian authorities discovered Moar had a history of violence and that he was previously charged with fatally stabbing an inmate at the federal Stony Mountain Institution in Manitoba, a place used to house violent offenders. Despite facing serious charges, Moar was paroled in October 2018, just two months before the murder.
Hibi’s fiancée was “furious” that someone with a violent past was permitted to roam free.
“How do you allow someone out who killed someone inside?” said Woloshyn. “If you can’t protect people in there, how are you supposed to protect them out?”
In light of Moar becoming a suspect in Hibi’s homicide, his parole was revoked, and a manhunt was underway. According to Sgt. O’Donovan, it appeared Moar went “underground” and “on the run,” with no substantiated sightings for several weeks. But, according to Crown Prosecutor Nick Reeves, cadets with the Winnipeg Police Service caught a lucky break on January 6, 2019, after they were alerted to a seemingly intoxicated man “walking in the street.”
The man provided police with a false name, though officers searching the man’s jacket found identification proving he was Kane Moar.
A Sister Recants her Statements
Ricardo Hibi’s Friend Recalls His Charm and Ambition
Police brought Moar in for questioning, though he steadfastly denied having anything to do with Ricardo Hibi’s death and soon lawyered up. But what would later become crucial was Moar’s black jacket, which matched the one seen in the surveillance footage from the crime scene, as observed by police.
Inside the jacket were blood stains that would later match that of Hibi’s D.N.A., and Moar was subsequently charged with one count of second-degree murder.
Investigators believed Moar killed Hibi because Hibi blocked Moar from entering the group home in an attempt to harm C.H.
“[Hibi] was protecting the kids in his house and doing what he was supposed to do,” Sgt. O’Donovan told Final Moments. “And Kane Moar wanted to get in there and lashed out the way he always does: violently.”
Kane Moar’s murder trial began in September 2020, and his sister, star witness Trinity Moar, took the stand. However, Trinity recanted her previous statements, testifying that she lied about everything.
Prosecutors feared Moar would be acquitted of murder.
“She said that when she spoke to police, she didn’t know what she was saying because she was high and drunk at the time,” said Crown Prosecutor Monique Cam.
Even so, the physical evidence against Moar — including the blood on Trinity’s door and inside Moar’s jacket — was overwhelming. On Sept. 24, 2020, a jury found the defendant guilty of second-degree murder.
He was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 15 years served.
Candace Woloshyn continues raising her and Ricardo Hibi’s son. The child carries his father’s legacy with his love for ice hockey and recently made the all-star team with aspirations to grow up and play with his father’s favorite team, the Winnipeg Jets.
“I want people to know that his heart was there; he wanted the best for these kids,” said Woloshyn. “Everyone knows his legacy, his laugh, and his smile, and just how genuine he is. And that’s what I want to keep going.”
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