‘I have to heal from this,’ says woman who accuses Manitoba priest of sexually abusing her in 1970s

Warning: This story deals with allegations of sexual assault and discussion of suicide.

Shelley Trubiak says she suffered in silence for 52 years — but two years ago decided she couldn’t do that anymore, after she started having flashbacks of the abuse by a priest she says she suffered while growing up in her small western Manitoba community.

Trubiak, who is now 66, went to the RCMP in 2022, triggering a two-year investigation that led to the issue of an arrest warrant in August for Constantin Turcoane, who was 81 at the time.

The retired priest was charged with rape and sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 14, after Trubiak alleged he sexually assaulted her in the early 1970s, when she was 12 years old and a parishioner at his church in Lennard, Man.

“I’ve been afraid and scared — all my life I went through this thing,” Trubiak, who now lives in Saskatchewan, told CBC News this week. “I have to heal from this, [and] this is the only way I might.

“I just want to tell my story.”

None of the allegations against Turcoane have been tested in court. No trial date has been set on his charges.

Turcoane’s lawyer told CBC News his client denies the allegations and will plead not guilty if the case proceeds to trial. He wouldn’t comment any further because the case is before the courts. 

The retired priest, who was living in Regina at the time, turned himself in to police after he was charged in August and has since been released from custody. 

Turcoane served as a priest in the early 1970s at the St. Elijah Romanian Orthodox Church in Lennard, a small community near the Saskatchewan border and roughly 300 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. 

The Canadian Orthodox History Project website says Turcoane worked with the parish in 1970-71.

Trubiak said she recalls Turcoane moving to Lennard in the winter of 1969, but doesn’t remember talking to him outside of mass until the summer of 1970.

She said she and her friends were playing hide-and-seek in the cemetery behind the church when the priest approached her and started talking to her. She alleges he grabbed her chest.

“I didn’t even have breasts back then, and he was holding me so tight. He used to smother me,” Trubiak said. “I’ll never forget this.”

Trubiak alleges Turcoane frequently engaged in unwanted touching and other sexual acts at the church and at his home, where she would sometimes babysit his daughter. 

“He always used to say, ‘Oh, Father loves you, so this is good, this is OK. Father loves you’,” she said. 

‘He took my life, my childhood’

Trubiak says the priest told her to stay silent and keep the alleged sexual abuse between the two of them. 

A year later, she said she overheard her mother talking to another member of the church about complaints raised about Turcoane being involved in other alleged abuse. She then decided to tell her mother.

The priest was eventually removed from the church. 

Despite that, Trubiak said she felt like no one in the community believed her, and her family was isolated.

With little support, she said she started to think she deserved what had happened to her. She later tried to take her own life, she said.

“Most kids have nice memories, good memories. I have terrible memories of my childhood,” Trubiak said. “He took my life, my childhood away.” 

Her life went into a downward spiral, and she began using drugs, alcohol and sex to numb her pain, she said.

She ran away from her home multiple times, sometimes for months, as she struggled to cope during her teenage years, including after she had a child at the age of 16. 

Trubiak says while memories of her abuse never left her mind, she learned how to deal with them through counselling. 

In 2016, she moved to Saskatchewan to take care of her dying mother and started struggling with flashbacks.

“I was suffering so badly,” she said. “It’s like being poisoned. I have to get this out of me.”

Coming forward a choice for survivors: expert

Experts say it’s very common for survivors of abuse to share their stories years — or even decades — after the fact.

“When someone has experienced a violation, such as sexual violence, where choice and consent was taken away from that individual, they reclaim it when they can make the choice to come forward for their own path,” said Kara Neustaedter, who oversees a program at Winnipeg’s Klinic Community Health that helps sex abuse survivors.

Neustaedter said coming forward is ultimately a choice, not a responsibility, and people have different reasons for sharing their experiences.

RCMP told CBC News they have not heard from any other people claiming they were abused by Turcoane since charges were laid in August, but more witnesses in Trubiak’s case have since given statements to police, helping with the investigation. 

Meanwhile, Trubiak hopes sharing her story publicly will help other survivors of sexual abuse come forward. 

“You don’t have to carry this ugly stuff to your grave,” she said. “Please come forward, not just for me, but for the other women.”

For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, support is available through crisis lines and local support services via this government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. ​​If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.