Mihail Oblacov’s life hit “rock bottom essentially right out of the gate” after he was introduced to crystal meth, his lawyer says.
And during a crime spree while he was in the throes of his addiction, Oblacov killed a stranger by plowing into his car.
Oblacov, 40, was sentenced in Regina provincial court on Tuesday to eight years in prison for the string of crimes he committed in 2024.
The most serious offence was impaired driving causing the death of 64-year-old Robert McCallum.
Oblacov also pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm to his wife, failing to remain at the scenes of multiple accidents, trying to steal vehicles from a car dealership, assaulting an employee there and assaulting a police officer.
At his sentencing hearing in January, Oblacov’s lawyer Logan Marchand gave the background that led up to the crimes.
Oblacov, who was born and raised in Moldova, had a “relatively normal upbringing,” Marchand said. He moved to Canada in 2013, obtained his citizenship, married his wife and had a child.
Oblacov was a successful business owner — until one of his employees at a job site introduced him to cocaine in 2023 and he quickly became heavily addicted, Marchand said.
“The problem is when you are getting into an addiction as a relatively successful business owner, you have the money to indulge in that addiction, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle,” Marchand said.
It “almost immediately” began creating problems at home and his business started to fail as he ran out of money.
At some point in the winter of 2023, Oblacov’s regular cocaine dealer was away and Oblacov, in desperation, ended up meeting a dealer on the street who said he didn’t have cocaine but he had crystal meth.
“Mr. Oblacov buys crystal meth for the first time. He begins using it, and then his life essentially falls off a cliff,” Marchand said. “The addictive power of crystal meth was far more than he could handle at that point.”
The side effects of overuse and meth-induced psychosis “essentially destroyed Mr. Oblacov’s life and did unbearable damage to everybody around him,” Marchand said.
The details of the crimes Oblacov committed, including two sets of incidents in February 2024 and then a string of crimes in July 2024, were outlined by Crown prosecutor Derek Davidson.
The first set of charges stemmed from Feb. 9, 2024, when Oblacov was high on crystal meth and locked out of his apartment. There was a party going on in the common room at the apartment building and Oblacov stole a vehicle key fob out of a jacket.
He drove the car away “to escape his hallucinations,” Davidson said, then returned it to the parking lot and left the fob inside it. After Oblacov noticed the car hadn’t moved in nearly a day, he took it again. He left it on the side of a road.
Once he was sober, days later, he contacted police and told them what he had done. He was charged and released.
The next incident was on Feb. 19, 2024, when Regina police received a call from Oblacov’s family that he was acting paranoid and had driven away. The aerial support unit located his vehicle and watched it drive north out of the city, reaching speeds up to 200 km/hr and “driving erratically” through farmers’ fields, Davidson said.
Police arrested Oblacov in Craven, Sask., for dangerous driving. He was again released.
The incidents on July 25, 2024, began at a gas station on the southeast edge of Regina. Oblacov punched and stabbed his wife inside their vehicle because she didn’t want him to be driving, Davidson said. Their eight-year-old daughter was inside the vehicle with them.
Oblacov’s wife and daughter got out and Oblacov fled, driving through the city. A short while later, he was in a collision at Albert Street and First Avenue. He fled again and then at Broad Street and Fourth Avenue, he sped through a red light and collided with Robert McCallum’s car.
Oblacov then fled on foot into a BMW dealership on Broad Street, where he tried to steal three different vehicles and then punched an employee who tried to stop him. Police arrived and detained Oblacov, then took him to hospital to have his injuries assessed. At the hospital, he spit in the face of one of the officers.
McCallum, who had been trapped inside his vehicle, had “significant injuries.” He died in hospital on Aug. 3, 2024.
Oblacov’s wife was treated in hospital for multiple stab wounds.
Davidson summed up the events as a “particularly horrific and bizarre fact pattern.” At the sentencing hearing in January, he argued for a total sentence of 10 years that would send the message to the public “that if this sort of carnage happens, that’s the sort of sentence you can expect to see.”
Marchand argued for a total sentence of six years, noting Oblacov was in a state of psychosis and not thinking rationally.
Oblacov’s wife read a victim impact statement in court and said her “heart goes out to” McCallum’s family.
She said while what happened to her was “very painful,” she never felt anger toward her husband. She said she knew he wasn’t in his right mind and said she believes with all her heart “his desire to change for good.”
Oblacov also spoke in court and apologized to McCallum’s family for creating a “permanent void” in their lives.
“My heart is heavy with sorrow for everything I have taken from you. I’m truly sorry,” he said.
After credit for his time on remand, Oblacov has about five and a half years left to serve on his eight-year sentence. He will also be prohibited from driving for five years after he’s released.
