Convicted killer accused of shoplifting is back in prison
Joe-Anne Hachey, 30, of Fredericton, served time in prison for manslaughter in the death of a drug dealer in 2017, now stands accused of stealing liquor
A Fredericton woman who was twice released from prison on parole while serving a sentence for manslaughter didn’t make it to court Thursday to answer to a theft charge - because she’s back in prison.
Joe-Anna Hachey, 30 of Boyne Crescent, was scheduled to make her first appearance in provincial court Thursday on an Oct. 27 count of stealing liquor from the Cross Roads Irving in Hanwell.
However, court heard she was unable to appear in person.
Instead, she appeared by telephone - from the Nova Institution, a women’s prison in Truro, N.S.
Judge Cameron Gunn set the case over to May 4 for plea.
It wasn’t clear Thursday why Hachey was in prison again, but she had served a federal sentence there in recent years.
She was sentenced in May 2018 to seven years behind bars, less credit for remand time, for manslaughter, stemming from the Jan. 26, 2017, shooting of Robert John Smith, AKA, Bobby Martin.
Hachey and another offender, Evan James Polchies, were originally charged with second-degree murder in Smith's death.
However, Hachey pleaded guilty to the lesser, included crime of manslaughter and testified against Polchies at his second-degree murder trial.
That trial ended with a hung jury and a mistrial, and subsequently, Polchies pleaded guilty to manslaughter as well, earning him a 13½-year prison sentence.
Court heard in 2018 that Hachey contacted Smith on the night in question, asking him to come to a Lincoln mini-home to sell her drugs. But it was a pretext to lure him into an ambush.
Polchies was also going to be at the mini-home, and there was bad blood between the two men. Hachey and Polchies had planned to rob Smith, and Polchies was armed with a rifle.
When Smith entered the home, Polchies shot him in the groin.
Smith fled the scene, but the bullet severed an artery, and he died in hospital shortly thereafter.
Court heard Hachey and Polchies had been on a binge, using hard drugs for several days leading up to the shooting.
Previous Parole Board of Canada decisions show Hachey was twice released from prison on day parole, first in July 2019.
However, she was detained and returned to prison in September 2019 after she breached numerous parole conditions, including use of illegal drugs.
The parole board decided to give her a second chance, cancelling the suspension of her day parole and allowing her to resume it back in the community in late November 2019.
Parole board documents from March 2020 show a new warrant was issued for her arrest Dec. 9, 2019, after it was discovered Hachey was using cocaine again.
As a result, the parole board revoked her day parole, finding Hachey posed an undue risk to the community.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.