Lawyers seek 13 years without parole for bizarre double homicide in Kootenays

Families of two Kootenay homicide victims told the court they are as devastated as they are confused while the killer of two people waits for a judge to decide his fate.

A Kamloops courtroom heard from several people including family members of Mitchell McIntyre’s victims, on Jan. 7 as lawyers proposed he be jailed for at least 13 years before he’s eligible for parole. The hearings come after he pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Julia Howe and the manslaughter of David Creamer.

Both deaths were initially ruled accidents, but McIntyre later confessed and pleaded guilty. Both were previously considered friends and the motive remains unclear.

Nine people from their respective families told a Kamloops courtroom how important the victims were in their lives and how the killings left them distraught, without answers for years.

“I will never be able to breathe a normal breath again,” Creamer’s daughter Taylor said.

In February 2022, McIntyre shot Creamer in his own Kimberley home. It was hours after he shot Julia Howe in her own bathroom in Cranbrook, just a 95-minute drive away.

McIntyre, now in his mid-60s, lived with Howe on her partner’s Cranbrook property and the court heard how he had become close with some of her family over time. But, until he was charged, Howe’s common-law partner Frank Reiner faced suspicion from the community.

They were both initially ruled accidents by police and the BC Coroners Service, but police were back on Howe’s case within days when a doctor found a bullet wound in her head. Creamer’s death, however, wasn’t considered a homicide for another month and his body was cremated before any forensic evidence was taken.

Aside from the killings themselves, the delays in the investigations have taken a toll on the families. Reiner, McIntyre’s former landlord, was one of a few people to tell the court about safety concerns after the killing. Before her death, he never locked his doors.

“I sleep with an axe under my bed and a bat by my door, because I know the cops won’t help me. I put cameras up all over inside and outside so I can keep an eye on things,” he told the court in his victim impact statement.

It’s not clear why McIntyre shot them, but he did submit himself to Cranbrook RCMP the day after to tell police he needed to be arrested. He didn’t say what, if anything, he did.

Asserting he was a danger to himself and others, he was taken to hospital under the Mental Health Act, where he stayed for weeks and eventually admitted he killed two people while also having a list of more people he wanted to kill.

At the time, homicide investigators were frustrated as they felt “stonewalled” by hospital staff, from whom they were trying to get information, and delays due to the false conclusions in Creamer’s death. Doctors told police to get a court order for the medical records.

In a preliminary decision on the case, Justice Paul Riley found McIntyre was only staying there to “put off the legal consequences he might be facing.”

It was only in August 2025 when McIntyre pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Creamer’s death.

Family members told the court of numerous mental health issues they were continually facing after Howe’s and Creamer’s deaths, including depression, anxiety, PTSD and alcoholism. Reiner had the additional responsibility of storing and selling McIntyre’s belongings, while struggling to get a new renter into the convicted killer’s former rental suite.

At the outset of his sentencing hearing, defence lawyers and prosecutors submitted a jointly proposed sentence for both killings. For the second-degree murder of Howe, they proposed he not be eligible for parole until 13 years into his life sentence. Concurrently, he would serve an eight-year sentence for Creamer’s manslaughter.

The Kamloops hearing is set for three days before Justice Paul Riley.