Hours after police linked the fatal overdose of a 14-year-old Kanata girl to the deadly drug fentanyl, hundreds of parents gripped by fear gathered with city leaders on Monday night to learn more about how to shield their kids from the lethal wave of opioids.

Dr. Isra Levy, the city’s chief medical officer, told the crowd there are no “cookbook solutions” and said his team has not been passive as it tracked the “wave” from the West Coast to Ottawa, where it is now in every pocket of the city and beyond its rural edges. 

“I wish that we had answers,” Levy said. “I wish we weren’t here.”

Deputy police Chief Steve Bell told the parents at the Kanata recreation centre that the force has been investigating fentanyl cases for 12 months.

MORE: Chloe Kotval’s family wants ‘devastating impact’ of counterfeit drug problem addressed

Bell also told the crowd police can’t rid the streets of fentanyl without everyone’s help.

Dozens of addiction and treatment experts lined up and fielded question after question at an information session organized by Coun. Allan Hubley. 

“The whole point of this is so parents can have an informed discussion with their children,” Hubley told the Citizen. “And then there’s enforcement, where if you know of someone who is dealing this, then report them before another child dies.”

The town hall was organized after the Valentine’s Day death of 14-year-old Chloe Kotval. Police on Monday confirmed they had linked her death to counterfeit pills that contained fentanyl.

Kotval’s was the second overdose death of a west-end teenager since New Year’s Eve. Police believe Kotval thought she was taking prescription Percocet and unwittingly consumed fentanyl. The pills she took were marked Percocet 5, but police believe they were counterfeit. 

Teslin Russell, 18, was found dead on Dec. 31, and police investigating her overdose death, have not yet received toxicology results. But they suspect she also consumed counterfeit pills.

The deaths have prompted a “critical” city-wide discussion on opioid drug use, especially among teens. 

Chief Charles Bordeleau, in his first public comments on that the deaths, called them tragic, adding: “I feel terrible for the parents and the families and the entire community that’s going through this.”

Bordeleau said Ottawa police knew that fentanyl, coming from China, would make its way to this city after its lethal effects had been felt elsewhere in Canada, especially in British Columbia.

Police made the largest fentanyl seizure in Ottawa history in mid-February, taking nearly 9,000 pills off the street. Bordeleau appealed to the public to give police information on who is supplying counterfeit pills and fentanyl in the city.

Bordeleau said that if police can trace counterfeit pills involved in a specific death to drug traffickers, those dealers could potentially face stiffer charges beyond drug trafficking. Police will continue to target traffickers, but Bordeleau said that work isn’t as important as public education.

“We want to make sure parents and kids have the information at hand to recognize what to look for, but also what to do and what are the agencies out there that can provide them support to get off these (drugs),” he said. 

“There’s some work yet to be done in our community.”

Police are working with Ottawa Public Health, paramedics and the community to educate families and children about the dangers of the “huge risks associated with taking these types of illegal substances,” he said.

“Education about the dangers of these drugs, prevention, harm reduction and solid treatment programs are needed in order for us to tackle this issue in our community,” Bordeleau said. 

But even with that effort, the chief warned, the problem is complex: “The reality is that we may see more deaths.”

Bordeleau said a man in his 20s died from a suspected overdose in the downtown area on the weekend, signalling to police that fatal opioid use isn’t just a west-end issue and isn’t only affecting teens. 

Frontline officers have been briefed on what they need to do to help the public, Bordeleau said.

The force is also looking at how best to deploy naloxone — a drug that acts as an antidote to an opioid overdose — to front-line officers. Bordeleau, as president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, has called on the province to fund naloxone for every front-line officer in Ontario.

The City of Ottawa is also looking into equipping firefighters with the overdose antidote, and paramedics have asked the province to double the number of doses from two to four that each ambulance carries.

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Chris LeCouvie had conquered much hardship and, in the last few years, had managed to turn his life around with a driven focus on his three-year-old son.

“He always wanted to help people, even when he couldn’t help himself,” said sister Kelly Gould.

“His son was his life and he loved him more than anything,” she said.

LeCouvie, in his 30s, and a woman in her 20s, were found dead in a Hull apartment Monday after neighbours reported hearing a child inside. The young boy was unharmed and healthy, according to Gatineau police, who are now awaiting toxicology results to see if drugs or alcohol played a role in the untimely deaths.

His friends were devastated by the news, and recalled him as inspiring. 

“He lived a very rough life but in the last five years, he had turned his life around,” said longtime friend Joni Reed.

“He was amazing and he really did everything for that little boy,” said Reed, who said LeCouvie was in recovery.

Though police have not yet officially determined the cause of the deaths, they have ruled out foul play and there will be no criminal investigation.

“The conclusion was reached after analysis of effects found at the scene as well as autopsy result,” the police department said.

Police cruisers remained on the scene at 73 Bégin St. on Tuesday as neighbours hurried to work or walked their dogs on the quiet street, which ends at a park overlooking the Ottawa River.

“He was my best friend even though we didn’t always get along,” his sister said.

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Police investigating the deaths of Chris LeCouvie and his girlfriend — both found dead Monday in their Hull apartment — have told his family that the couple overdosed and had been dead for at least two days while his three-year-old son fended for himself in the second-floor unit.

“I was surprised that it was an overdose because he had been doing so good for so long and had been sober for a long time,” said sister Kelly Gould.
 
She said police told her they are still waiting for toxicology results to determine what drug or drugs caused the untimely deaths.

Chris LeCouvie.

By all accounts, LeCouvie, 33, had a troubled life, bouncing around foster homes as a child, and later jail cells as an adult. But he managed to turn his life around when his son was born three years ago.

“His son was his life and he loved him more than anything. His son saved his life and gave him purpose,” Gould said.

LeCouvie was always trying to help people even when he couldn’t help himself, his sister said.

LeCouvie and his new girlfriend, Amelie-Audrey Gauthier, were found dead Monday. The young boy was unharmed and healthy.

LeCouvie’s friends have been devastated by the news, remembering him as inspiring. 

“He lived a very rough life but in the last five years, he had turned his life around,” said longtime friend Joni Reed. “He was amazing and he really did everything for that little boy,” said Reed, who said LeCouvie was in recovery.

Though police have not yet officially determined the cause of the deaths, they have ruled out foul play and said there will be no criminal investigation.

LeCouvie had recently moved to Hull from Ottawa. 

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The family of an Ottawa man who died in a scuba diving accident in the Dominican Republic last week is still trying to learn about Allen McGuire’s last moments of life.

McGuire, 53, was on vacation with his wife, Luanna Cappuccino, when he died in a scuba diving accident on Feb. 22.

News of his death has devastated his friends and family.

“Today is one week since he’s been gone and my days will never be the same. But I will never be alone. He will be with me forever and always,” said Cappuccino, who is still in the Caribbean, grieving with McGuire’s daughter, Victoria.

A GoFundMe campaign was launched to help the family make arrangements to bring his body home.

McGuire was found unresponsive in the water and others on the excursion tried to resuscitate him. He died from asphyxiation, his family said.

“He filled a room with joy. He was full of enthusiasm at all times … and was very loved by many,” Cappuccino told the Citizen.

She wasn’t on the doomed scuba-diving tour and has spent the past week in a desperate search for answers and has so far been unsuccessful in getting local authorities to investigate.

“Getting answers to what happened has become a battle I’ve accepted I will probably not win,” Cappuccino said.

An Ontario Superior Court judge has ordered Canada’s spy agency to reveal its secret records — including financial dealings — about a prized agent who was paid to infiltrate an ISIL network in Ottawa.

It’s a decision that could give the public rare insight into the inner workings of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service — from how they recruited an informant, to how they tested his reliability, to how much they paid him for his intel.

The court order comes after a successful application by Solomon Friedman, the lawyer defending accused terrorism financier and recruiter Awso Peshdary, 27.

While the criminal charges against Peshdary stem from an RCMP investigation, the defence lawyer fought for the secret records from CSIS because the paid agent — Abdullah Milton — previously worked for the spy agency from 2011 to 2013. Milton had been recruited to spy on Peshdary.

Milton was then used as an asset by the RCMP and paid at least $800,000 to spy on one-time friends in an anti-terrorism investigation that yielded criminal charges against a network in Ottawa, including three targets who have already pleaded guilty.

CSIS lawyers fought to keep its records secret but Justice Julianne Parfett forced them to hand over the files. She will now review the material and decide what the defence can and can’t see.

That information will be vital to Friedman, who argued that without full disclosure of all CSIS documents he is essentially “blindfolded” from meaningful cross-examination of Milton.

The credibility and reliability of Milton, the star witness in the Crown case against Peshdary, will be key issues at the terrorism trial scheduled for 2018.

Friedman argued the records should be disclosed because Milton isn’t a protected source, but rather a paid police agent who has waived his privacy privilege and has agreed to testify against Peshdary at trial.

Friedman also said he intends to question the agent’s motives, ranging from financial to whether he was a neutral observer or an active participant in the terror network.

Milton has said that he fell into the spy business by accident. He said that in January 2011 CSIS visited him after he posted photos he took of Parliament Hill as a tourist.

He went on to work for CSIS, but the details of his contract have never been made public.

When the Mounties were investigating Peshdary in 2013, they moved to expand their terrorism probe to include one of his associates — Milton — not knowing that he was actually a CSIS agent. CSIS then cut its ties with Milton and handed him over to the RCMP in 2014.

Milton’s work is credited for convictions against terror twins Ashton and Carlos Larmond, and Suliman Mohamed, who pleaded guilty in August to plotting to leave the country to join ISIL.

The case against Peshdary is also anchored in the same agent’s spy work. Peshdary has pleaded not guilty to all charges. 

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In a haunting victim-impact statement at the sentencing of the disgraced former Mountie who starved and tortured his 11-year-old son in a darkened Kanata basement, the boy’s aunt stood in court Wednesday and told him: “An angel … escaped from your hell.”

“These are our family’s last words to you. … Our pain is deep and lasting,” she told a hushed courtroom. “We hope one day he will see his physical scars as a testament to his strength.”

“We pray that one day he will truly feel worthy and loved and know that he has value. This has been an achingly long, gut-wrenching journey but, in the end, a battered, courageous little boy with nothing but his will to live, freed himself from your dungeon. An angel, not Satan, escaped from your hell. And a final, sad irony is that you ended up being the criminal you accused him of being,” she said.

The father, a former RCMP counter-terrorism officer, 45, was convicted in November of assault, sexual assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessities of life by Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger. 

Related

• Tortured son of ex-Mountie says scars serve as a daily reminder of his hell
• Stepmom of Ottawa boy tortured in family's basement sentenced to three years in jail

During the trial, which began in September 2015, it was revealed the man videotaped his naked and shackled son while he inflicted disturbing, religious-themed interrogations, demanding the emaciated boy repent and screaming he would ”weep blood” for his so-called sins.

At one point, the ex-Mountie enlisted a Roman Catholic priest to perform an exorcism.

In one of the videos that reduced defence lawyers and police to tears at trial, the tiny, frightened boy begged: “I want my family back.”

The boy spent the last month of his captivity trying to escape the horrors of the basement, where he was chained to a post as he slept and forced to use a slop bucket for a toilet while the rest of his family went about their routines upstairs.

That he managed to loosen his chains and escape is what led to the child-abuse case against his father and stepmother, 37, who was also found guilty in November on less severe charges of assault with a weapon (wooden spoon) and failing to provide the necessities of life. 

The boy testified at trial about Feb. 12, 2013, the day he escaped.

“I was terrified, hungry and thirsty. I couldn’t take it anymore. My entertainment was (staring at) a wall and I was just getting hurt and burned. I was scared to death. … I thought he was going to kill me.”

Justice Maranger heaped praise on the terrorized boy, who had to relive the horror as he testified across three days at trial.

“That a parent could do the things that were done (to the boy) was gut-wrenching. That being said, however, the fact that this half-starved, burned and battered 11-year-old could somehow summon the strength to escape his cruel captivity and later seemingly rise above it, is a testament to the indomitability of the human spirit,” the judge told court.

Since it was never in question that the boy had been abused, the father mounted a post-traumatic stress disorder defence during the trial. 

Victim Statement by Ottawa Citizen on Scribd

The Mountie testified in his own defence at trial, and presented himself as a victim, speaking for hours about his fragile state of mind.

He detailed the troubles of his own childhood in war-torn Lebanon. He talked about dead bodies, bombs and the day he was raped by a teacher. He spoke of “extreme nightmares” from his youth, his troubled career in the RCMP and how a so-called problem child was the last thing he needed.

The Mountie tried to explain that he thought his boy was possessed and he feared he’d grow up to be a sexual predator.

“Me and my son were at war. … I had an enemy in front of me.”

He claimed that he didn’t know his actions were wrong.

Court heard from a psychiatrist hired by the defence. Dr. Helen Ward testified that the ex-Mountie suffered from “chronic and severe” PTSD and narcissism. The expert witness who examined him told court he did not express remorse and she tried to explain, not excuse his horrific acts.

The Mountie saw his son as possessed and wild, though he wasn’t, by everyone else’s accounts, from teachers to doctors to neighbours and family.

The doctor told court that his inability to control his son and his problems at work left him overwhelmed by it all.

“He desperately wants his son to be different than he perceived him to be,” Ward told court.

There is a publication ban on the names of the child abusers to protect the identity of the boy.

The sentencing hearing is expected to continue Thursday at the Elgin Street courthouse.

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The ex-RCMP counter terrorism investigator who starved and tortured his 11-year-old son in a Kanata basement in 2013 apologized in court Thursday, saying he’s sorry for his “cruel and barbaric” acts and hopes that one day his son can forgive him for his “evil” acts.

The former Mountie stood in the prisoner’s box and read a handwritten statement saying that only God knows how much he regrets starving his son down to 50 pounds and burning his genitals with a BBQ lighter.

“I’m ashamed and sorry for being a monster to you,” the disgraced ex-police officer said.

He broke down a few times as he read his apology, and many in the court gallery rolled their eyes when the man — who, court has heard, has severe narcissism — described his apology as “humble” and “sincere”.

The father was convicted by Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger in November of assault, sexual assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessities of life.

He videotaped his naked and shackled son while he inflicted disturbing, religious-themed interrogations, demanding the emaciated boy repent and screaming he would “weep blood” for his so-called sins.

At one point, the ex-Mountie enlisted a Roman Catholic priest to perform an exorcism.

In one of the videos that reduced defence lawyers and police to tears at trial, the tiny, frightened boy begged: “I want my family back.”

The boy spent the last month of his captivity trying to escape his basement horror in which he was chained to a post as he slept and forced to use a bucket for a toilet while the rest of his family went about their routines upstairs.

That he managed to loosen his chains and escape is what led to the child-abuse case against his father and stepmother, 37, who was also found guilty in November on lesser charges of assault with a weapon (wooden spoon) and failing to provide the necessities of life.

The father testified in his own defence, and presented himself as a victim, speaking for hours about his fragile state of mind. He detailed the troubles of his own childhood in war-torn Lebanon. He talked about dead bodies, bombs and the day he was raped by a teacher.

He spoke of “extreme nightmares” from his youth, his troubled career in the RCMP and how a so-called problem child was the last thing he needed. He tried to explain that he thought his boy was possessed and he feared he’d grow up to be a sexual predator.

“Me and my son were at war … I had an enemy in front of me.”

Dr. Helen Ward, a psychiatrist hired by the defence, testified that the man suffered from “chronic and severe” PTSD and narcissism. The expert witness who examined him told court he did not express remorse and she tried to explain, not excuse, his horrific acts.

The ex-Mountie saw his son as possessed and wild, though he wasn’t by everyone else’s accounts, from teachers to doctors to neighbours and family.

The Crown has asked the judge for a sentence of 23 years. The defence asked for a sentence of five to seven years.

Maranger will sentence the ex-Mountie in April.

Ian Bush, the Ottawa consultant accused in the 2007 killings of three seniors, stood in the prisoner’s box on Monday and pleaded not guilty.

Then he grinned as he sat confidently while lawyers spent the day selecting a jury that will decide his fate.

Bush, 61, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the June 2007 killings of Raymonde Garon, her husband Alban Garon, also 77, and their neighbour Marie-Claire Beniskos, 78.

The trial is expected to start with opening statements from Crown attorneys on Wednesday.

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Devontay Hackett was condemned to prison Monday for at least 12 years in the “senseless and brutal” 2014 killing of 18-year-old Brandon Volpi, who was slashed to death trying to defend a friend on his prom night.

“What should have been a celebration of pride and accomplishment and an evening of good fun and memories turned into a tragedy that shocked this community,” Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland said.

The judge noted that Volpi, a “totally innocent and blameless young man,” was unarmed when he was knifed to death in an unprovoked attack outside Les Suites Hotel in downtown Ottawa.

Because Hackett didn’t testify at trial, the motive for the killing remains unclear and he himself claims he doesn’t know why he did it, according to a pre-sentence report.

Hackett says he was too drunk to remember key events on the night in question. He says he feels “truly sorry” for Volpi’s family, but the judge noted that it is “concerning” that the young killer has yet to take responsibility for his actions. 

Hackett was convicted of second-degree murder, which carries a life sentence. The judge’s final task in the trial was to rule on the number of years Hackett has to serve before being eligible for parole. The judge ruled that Hackett — who completed high school in jail — will have to serve at least 12 before he can apply for full parole.

Though it may have felt like justice, nobody was celebrating the sentencing.

Danny Volpi leaves the Ottawa court house in Ottawa Monday April 3, 2017. Danny’s son Brandon was killed by Devontay Hackett. Hackett was sent to prison Monday with no chance of parole for 12 years.

Danny Volpi said nothing can bring back his son, but at least he can now rest in peace. To keep his son’s memory alive, Volpi announced outside court that he intends to hold an annual golf tournament in his son’s name. The first tournament is June 7 at Anderson Links, he said.

On June 7, 2014, after a brawl that lasted only seconds, Brandon Volpi spent the last moments of his life outside Les Suites Hotel, clutching his slashed throat, yelling, “Who did this? Who did this?”

Volpi was a good son with a big heart, the guy who always stood up for his friends, court heard during the trial. It was no different on that fateful night, when a friend asked to be escorted to a neighbouring hotel out of fear of then-18-year-old Hackett, who was waiting outside for him. 

Volpi was unarmed and sober. Hackett, who had been drinking for 14 hours straight, had a knife.

A brawl ensued that lasted about seven seconds, and the final, chilling images of Volpi’s life were captured on cellphone video taken by other grads from their hotel balconies above. Volpi’s throat was slashed and stabbed in the heart. 

“Back in the day we used to fight with fists but these days it’s knives and it’s cowardly,” his father told the Citizen.

The police case against Hackett was anchored in video and DNA evidence, including a bloody white T-shirt he discarded after the killing. Blood from both the victim and the killer were on the shirt. 

When Hackett was arrested a month later in Toronto, he was still wearing the same Michael Kors watch he had on the night of the murder. It still had his victim’s blood on it. In the days he lived as a fugitive, he checked online news stories about the killing, including a story that said he was wanted for the second-degree murder of Volpi.

He also researched how to move to Jamaica before police caught up to him.

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Ian Bush kept a rambling, handwritten journal about his deep hatred for the tax man. 

He also kept a toolkit for murder.

Enraged over a bitter tax feud, the Ottawa consultant targeted a retired tax court judge in a murder plot he executed on the morning of June 29, 2007, allegedly hog-tying the elderly judge, his wife and friend, then beating them and suffocating them to death with plastic bags in their Riverside Drive condo.

In opening statements at Ian Bush’s triple murder trial on Wednesday, Assistant Crown Attorney Tim Wightman revealed the police theory to the jury, saying the accused’s “focal point of rage” was Alban Garon, a retired chief justice of Canada’s tax court.

The prosecutor also revealed horrifying details about the crime.

Garon, 77, was found with a plastic bag over his head, and a hangman’s noose around his neck. He had been beaten about the head. The judge, his wife Raymonde, also 77, and their friend Marie-Claire Beniskos, 78, were found in a pool of blood on the living-room floor the day after the killings when a worried relative knocked, and opened the unlocked door to Unit 1002 in the high security building.

The jury — 11 men, one woman — heard that Ottawa police found DNA evidence at the crime scene that they matched to Bush years later. Bush took notes and sat confidently in the prisoner’s box on the first day of his trial on three counts of first-degree murder.

After linking Bush to the killings in 2015, police searched his home and seized a toolkit for murder, which included duct-tape, rubber gloves, a sawed-off rifle, ammunition, and plastic bags (the ones with suffocation warnings). Ottawa police also found his handwritten journal, anchored in the ramblings of a man who wrote that tax collectors were the “lowest form of humanity” and likened them to extortionists. 

The jury also heard about an “arrogant and insulting” letter that Bush, now 61, sent to the retired judge, in which he summoned him to his home for a bizarre hearing.

Alban and Raymonde Garon were found dead in their Riverside Drive condo on June 30, 2007.

In one of his writings, titled “Process,” the accused triple killer lists what appears to be all the usual ingredients for crime — from gaining access, to securing “parties, cash, plus credit cards and pins, assets,” right down to leaving his “calling card.”

Bush also kept several bogus identification cards in a wallet, including an RCMP inspector’s ID, a hydro worker’s ID, a federal government ID card and a delivery man’s ID, court heard.

The jury also heard that Raymonde Garon had told friends about an odd visit from a delivery man two days before the killings. The delivery man said he had a package for her husband, but when told he wasn’t home, the man said he’d return another day. The odd part about it was that Raymonde offered to take the package but the delivery man said it would be inconvenient because the parcel was downstairs. And when she offered to accompany him downstairs, he declined and left for the elevator on the 10th floor.

The jury was also told they will hear other key evidence linking Bush to the triple killing — including a bloody shoe print at the scene believed to be from a New Balance sneaker that Bush wore back in 2007. Police were also able to match rope found at Bush’s home to the rope used to hogtie the three victims.

June 29, 2007 was supposed to be a day of leisure for the Alban and Raymonde Garon, with them scheduled for a lunch with friends, followed by an afternoon of sailing in Aylmer. Raymonde was recovering from surgery and had just checked her blood pressure in the kitchen, according to her own records. Later that morning, Marie-Claire Beniskos, a neighbour and close friend who lived on the same floor, dropped by to go over their plans that night to catch a movie.

Minutes later, an intruder stormed in and terrorized his victims before killing them.

The prosecutor told the jury that they didn’t fight back, and noted there were no signs of a struggle, with furniture and framed photographs left undisturbed.

The court also heard about security video of Ian Bush captured at a nearby OC Transpo bus station minutes before and after the killings. It didn’t take long for his son to identify him in the video when asked by police. His son, Brock, identified him immediately by the way he walked and his fanny pack.

The first witness called to testify was Jean-Pierre Lurette, 78, Raymonde Garon’s younger brother, and the one who made the shocking discovery a day later on June 30, 2007.  

Raymonde’s friends were worried that she and her husband had missed lunch, sailing and supper plans, and so Lurette, who lives in the same building, went to check on them. He peeked through the peephole and was surprised to see the apartment lights were on in the morning. He knocked and then opened the unlocked door. 

“I saw three people bleeding on the carpet in the living room … I panicked and left quickly,” an emotional Lurette testified.

He went back to his apartment and told his wife about what he’d seen, then called 911.

Ian Bush, who was vehemently opposed to taxation, has pleaded not guilty and the trial, presided by Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin McKinnon, is expected to last two months.

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He was the only man in the elevator that Julio Santa Marta didn’t recognize. He was the man carrying a bag, the one who looked back over his shoulder as he walked out and down the hallway.

It was this chance encounter, on the morning of June 29, 2007, that has turned Santa Marta, longtime handyman, into a key witness at the trial of Ian Bush, the Ottawa consultant accused of killing retired tax court judge Alban Garon, his wife Raymonde, also 77, and their friend Marie-Claire Beniskos, 78.

Marie-Claire Beniskos.

“He was serious-looking, tight lips and kept walking … I wasn’t paying attention at the time. I wasn’t suspicious,” testified Santa Marta, the handyman at Riviera condos since they were built in 1984 on Riverside Drive. 

It’s the same security building where, on the 10th floor, the seniors were killed in Unit 1002. 

They had been hog-tied and suffocated. The retired judge — the target of Bush’s rage over a bitter tax feud — had also been beaten about the head, assistant Crown attorney Tim Wightman told the jury.

The judge was found with a plastic bag over his head, and a hangman’s noose around his neck.

Santa Marta, 67, testified that he got only a quick look, recalling the stranger had a thick nose and head.

Ian Bush is seen in the back of of an unmarked police cruiser in this 2015 file photo.

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Geraldine Castle-Trudel, the handyman testified that he didn’t see the same man in Courtroom No. 34. (The witness was facing Ian Bush, in the prisoner’s box at the time.)

Prosecutors James Cavanagh and Tim Wightman called the handyman to the stand to place the stranger at the scene of the crime.

Minutes before the stranger was seen in the building, a man matching the same description and also carrying a bag, is seen at a nearby OC Transpo station.

Images of the man at the bus stop, captured on video surveillance, were shown to the jury on Thursday.

When police detectives had shown the video to Ian Bush’s son Brock, he immediately said, “That’s my dad,” noting the way he walked and his fanny pack.

The man identified as Bush, a 61-year-old human resources consultant, is seen on the video at the nearby bus stop minutes before and after the killings.

The case had gone cold, and a review of the investigation by another police force concluded Ottawa detectives had exhausted every avenue.

But in early 2015, the jury heard, Ottawa police finally were able to match the accused’s DNA to a DNA profile found at the bloody scene. Once that match was made, police executed an authorized search of Bush’s Ottawa home.

The police found a rambling, handwritten journal about his deep hatred for the tax man, and a toolkit for murder, the jury heard.

It included duct-tape, rubber gloves, a sawed-off rifle, ammo, and plastic bags (the ones with suffocation warnings). Ottawa police also found his handwritten journal, anchored in the ramblings of a man who wrote that tax collectors were the “lowest form of humanity” and likened them to extortionists.

The jury also heard about an “arrogant and insulting” letter that Bush sent to the retired judge, in which he summoned him to his home for a bizarre hearing.

Ian Bush, who is vehemently opposed to taxation, has pleaded not guilty and the trial, presided by Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin McKinnon, continues Friday.

Ontario Court Justice David Paciocco, recognized as one of Canada’s leading legal minds, has been appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

His successful job application is a tour de force and stands as a candid life portrait of a sitting judge who literally wrote the book on the law of evidence. In the application, the judge details his early days driving a mail truck to being too broke to take the year-long bar admission course after law school to his days as a top legal academic shaping the country’s laws.

But because judges are intensely private, his application offers a rare glimpse from the bench about the daily, unvarnished proceedings at the Elgin Street courthouse. His account of the people who stand before him, most in their worst moments, is anchored in compassion for racialized communities that are over-represented at the courthouse.

Asked how his experience gives him insight into the diversity of Canadians, Paciocco wrote the following about his unforgettable time standing (he doesn’t usually sit) behind the bench:

“If you want to see diversity, go to a provincial courthouse. I now work in those courts daily, and have been for five years. Being a provincial court judge is an immersion in the world of poverty, homelessness and mental illness. In Ottawa, it is a veritable baptism in the challenges faced by aboriginals, most pervasively, Inuit people plagued by alcoholism and displacement, often stranded far from the north after having come here (Ottawa) for medical reasons.

“I see these people in their worst moments, sometimes shackled, but always bowed and humiliated and hurting. Often sick, always in need. It is impossible not to be affected by this. One would have to be blind not to see the diversity of our communities, and heartless not to crave solutions to inequality and excessive use of the criminal law,” Paciocco wrote in his job application.

The judge said his time at 161 Elgin St. has been a “voyage of discovery” and that his life experiences — he notes his good fortune more than once — have given him the “tool kit” to be a fine judge, one known for his humanity and humility.

When asked about ensuring Canadians are reflected in the faces and life experiences of judges, Paciocco, who understands comedy, wrote:

“As for the ordinary Canadians who look at the justices appointed to the bench, if they glance they will see a middle-aged, white male baby boomer with an Italian name they will never learn to spell.”

But jokes aside, Paciocco has a deeply serious side, and is a leading scholar and jurist known for his uncommon mastery of the law. He’s got too many awards to list and has authored or co-authored five books, including The Law of Evidence, and more than 150 academic chapters and articles.

He’s taught law for 30 years, has worked as a Crown attorney and later a defence lawyer at Edelson Clifford d’Angelo. His work has been widely cited by the Supreme Court of Canada and every other level of court in the country. He has given legal advice around the world and appeared at a war tribunal (Rwanda). He started a mentorship program (80 students a year to this day) and his judicial work has had an impact.

His decisions are routinely relied upon by lawyers, particularly when deciding whether to permit cross-examination of search warrant affiants, whether to allow technically inadmissible evidence in preliminary inquiries, and when to apply the victim surcharge.

Paciocco was the judge who, in 2014, struck down the former Conservative government’s mandatory victim surcharge as unconstitutional. In a carefully reasoned, 31-page decision, Paciocco found that a reasonable person would find that a $900 victim surcharge for an addicted, impoverished Inuit offender convicted of nuisance crimes was so grossly disproportionate that it would outrage the standards of decency.

The judge said at the time that a victim surcharge in that case amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

When he answered the question about whether judges are reflective of the folks before them, Paciocco also noted that everyone has something “important to offer to your community”, no matter if you’re from a rusty, blue-collar town in the north (Sault Ste. Marie), and no matter your social status — even in the “lower-middle class progeny of an unwelcome immigrant population and the grandson of an orphaned First Nations girl.”

His grandmother on his mother’s side was that aboriginal orphan, with status in an American Chippewa band. His grandfather had Italian roots and Paciocco, now 62, was raised in a community of labourers and knew first-hand what it felt like to “make a living.”

His appointment to Ontario’s appeal court has been widely applauded.

Prominent Ottawa lawyer Michael Edelson has worked with Paciocco for 25 years.

The top lawyer heaped praise:

“He is an individual who possesses enormous humanity and humour. His brilliance is exceeded only by his modesty and his passion for the law. The Ontario Court of Appeal is the ideal place for him to exercise all of his legal acumen in service to the public and to the bar. We are all made better by this appointment.”

Anne London-Weinstein, president of the Defence Counsel Association of Ottawa, welcomed Paciocco’s appointment to the appeal court.

“The federal government could not have selected a more qualified candidate for our court of appeal. Justice Paciocco has the intellectual capacity, judgment, legal knowledge and experience as a trial judge to make a significant contribution to our justice system. He was a great trial judge for us here in Ottawa, and I am not surprised by his appointment,” London-Weinstein said.

In announcing Paciocco’s appointment, the Attorney General of Canada’s office said the Ottawa judge is considered one of Canada’s pre-eminent legal minds.

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They marched down Jasmine Crescent more than 200-strong on Sunday afternoon.

Children, the elderly, parents, students, teachers, school principals, scouts, ministers, the police chief, the mayor and the neighbourhood’s councilman, Tim Tierney, marched along the street, starting close to where 20-year-old Nooredin Hassan was gunned down last year, then past the Jasmine Towers, where in April 2015, Connor Stevenson, 18, was knifed to death in the stairwell, not far from the parking lot where in September 2015, Issaiah Clacher, 17, was stabbed to death.

But it’s been more than a year since homicide detectives have been called to Jasmine, where there is now a surge of hope as fear fades and crime is down, according to Ottawa Police Chief Charles Bordeleau. (The police chief’s appearance drew applause, as did the mayor’s and the march’s main organizer, Tim Tierney.)

Everyone agreed that the biggest catalyst for change was the simplest – just getting together, as a community, to talk it out and try to make Jasmine a better, safer place.

The neighbourhood looks a lot different than it did a year ago. The east-end street is now lined with branch sculptures by top Wakefield environment artist Marc Walter, there are now music lessons and a new hockey and football program. Coun. Tierney is also working on building a decent outdoor rink, and hopefully one day a community centre.

But not long ago, this was the kind of street that kept Joe Cherfan’s parents inside their fourth-floor apartment for a month last year.

Three homicides were enough to keep them from setting foot outside.

“It scared them … They were afraid of going out,” said Cherfan, a community volunteer who lives in the Jasmine Towers. 

Cherfan, 22, says he feels safer in his neighbourhood and reports that he hasn’t witnessed a drug deal in a year and has no worries about walking around after sundown. The folks who work at the street’s food bank said that a year ago the neighbourhood would take a rapid turn at nightfall, but last summer the biggest crime was that someone was stealing vegetables from the community garden. (In response, they put up a sign saying “DO NOT PICK THE PRODUCE”)

Cherfan, like many at the march, is proud to call Jasmine his home. “I’m part of this community and it’s a part of me,” he said.

He hasn’t seen a police car in a long time either, a sign that things are turning around, he said.

Before the free hot dogs – courtesy of Enbridge – there were speeches. The police chief told the crowd to keep up their “amazing work” and reminded them that the police department is with them “every step of the way.”

Mayor Jim Watson praised the crowd for taking the helm and setting the neighbourhood on a good course.

Tierney said: “The work is not done, but at the same time, we have come a long way. And we’re not stopping.”

If branding is any indication that things are getting better in the neighbourhood, the Jasmine Safety Committee has been renamed Vision Jasmine.

“I love Jasmine and we’re doing a lot of work to make it an even better community. It’s a lot more than just waving signs and eating hot dogs,” Tierney said.

gdimmock@postmedia.com

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The boy’s monster is now in prison, and the 10-month, painful trial — anchored in a series of haunting cellphone videos of a former Mountie interrogating his naked, shackled 11-year-old son in a darkened Kanata basement — is finally over.

But for the boy, there will be a lifetime of healing, an Ottawa courtroom heard Wednesday.

The boy has scars from his time down in the basement, where at the hands of his own father — a former RCMP counter-terrorism investigator — he was handcuffed, shackled, beaten, tortured, burned and starved. The boy slept in chains on the basement floor, next to a slop bucket while the rest of his family went about their daily routines upstairs.

After sentencing the boy’s father to 15 years in prison for his crimes of assault, sexual assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessities of life, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger said the “cruel captivity” the boy faced was “outrageous” and breached the highest form of trust between father and son.

The judge said the boy had been robbed of his childhood, and noted that the ex-Mountie did not express remorse. “In his father’s eyes, he was nothing,” the judge said.

“The extreme violence and psychological degradation was beyond comprehension,” said Maranger.

The former Mountie — who was convicted in November and fired by the RCMP weeks later — was also banned for life from ever being closer than two kilometres to his son. 

Related

• 'I'm sorry for my cruel and barbaric atrocities,' says Ottawa ex-Mountie who tortured son
• 'An angel … escaped from your hell,' tortured boy's aunt rips into ex-Mountie at sentencing hearing
• Watchdog probing police handling of Mountie child abuse case
• Tortured son of ex-Mountie says scars serve as a daily reminder of his hell
• On the Ottawa officer who arrested the child-torturing Mountie

The abused boy, now 15, did not attend Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, but he wrote a note to his father. As it was read aloud, Courtroom No. 32 fell silent. 

“You used to always tell me that two plus two equaled four. If you take all of the multiples of four, that still wouldn’t equal all of the people that now care for me and are in my life. If one day you stop thinking about yourself, you may realize how wrong what you did was.”

While the message was being read, the boy’s father kept his head down as he sat in the prisoner’s box. 

The lead investigators on the case — Det. Johanne Marelic and now retired Sgt. Tracy Butler — were praised by the judge for their work. It was Sgt. Butler’s last case, and she thanked her family for understanding the long hours behind it. She also heaped praise on her partner Marelic, who built a solid relationship with the boy and his extended family.

“This is going to be a long road for him,” Marelic said.

On a positive note, the detective said she now has a “new little friend in my life, a remarkable boy.”

“I am very proud of this young child. He’s gone through the unimaginable and his strength and perseverance is indescribable,” the detective said.

The detective also said that the boy is today surrounded by love and support.

Assistant Crown Attorneys Marie Dufort and Michael Boyce, who successfully prosecuted the Mountie, said the case was a gruelling ordeal and they hope that the boy can now lead his life in peace.

Because for the boy, from what the lengthy trial revealed, peace was nowhere to be found in that dark Kanata basement. 

The ex-Mountie videotaped his naked and shackled son while he inflicted disturbing, religious-themed interrogations, demanding the boy repent for his so-called sins.

In one of the videos shown at trial, the tiny, frightened boy begged: “I want my family back.”

The boy said his father homeschooled him because he had “impure thoughts.” When he got some answers wrong, his dad “would go crazy” and start hitting him, the boy said.

The boy said his father forced him to do continuous push-ups as a form of punishment but the boy was sometimes too weak. His failure to summon strength brought with it more violent punishment.

“He kicked my head on the floor. I was, my nose was bleeding, I fainted, then I woke up and my nose, I was bleeding on the floor,” the boy told a detective.

Another time, he said he almost drowned when his father dunked and held his head under water in the toilet bowl. “I was drowning … and he’d say ‘I hate you!’”

Other times, the boy said his father would lift him off the ground by the throat “and choke me.”

The boy spent the last month of his captivity trying to escape his basement horror. At the time, he only weighed 50 pounds. That he managed to escape in February of 2013 is what led to the child-abuse case against his father, 45, and stepmother, 37, who was also found guilty in November on lesser charges of assault with a weapon — wooden spoon — and failing to provide the necessities of life. (The names of all parties involved are protected by a publication ban.)

The father testified in his own defence, and presented himself as a victim, speaking for hours about his fragile state of mind. He detailed the troubles of his own childhood in war-torn Lebanon. He talked about dead bodies, bombs and the day he was raped by a teacher.

He spoke of “extreme nightmares” from his youth, his troubled career in the RCMP and how a so-called problem child was the last thing he needed. He tried to explain that he thought his boy was possessed and he feared he’d grow up to be a sexual predator.

“Me and my son were at war … I had an enemy in front of me.”

Dr. Helen Ward, a psychiatrist hired by the defence, testified that the man suffered from “chronic and severe” PTSD and narcissism. The expert witness who examined him told court he did not express remorse and she tried to explain, not excuse, his horrific acts.

The ex-Mountie saw his son as possessed and wild, though he wasn’t by everyone else’s accounts, from teachers to doctors to neighbours and family.

The former Mountie was credited for pre-trial custody, reducing his prison term to 13 years.

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The so-called mastermind in the 2010 killing of Barrhaven teen Michael Swan was sentenced Thursday to nine years in a case the judge called a deadly betrayal of friendship.

Mike Swan’s parents had waited seven years for Sam Tsega to apologize, but when he did they were offended by it, and even the judge noted on Thursday that it was too little, too late.

Tsega spoke about himself, said he was still young at 25, and hoped to one day get married — all the things Mike Swan would never get to do.

Dale Swan thought Tsega was “rubbing it in.”

Swan was shot in the back after being forced to his knees at gunpoint by three masked intruders from Toronto. The Barrhaven teen, a popular athlete, was executed in his own bedroom over a bag of weed, some money and NHL video games in what Ontario Superior Court Justice Catherine Aitken said was a “tragic and senseless” killing driven by greed. 

It was Tsega, now 25, who conspired with a group of friends — known as the Toronto 3 and all since convicted of murder. Tsega wasn’t at the armed home invasion, but he helped to plan it, from giving the trio Swan’s address, the layout of the house and, finally, the masks used in the botched robbery. Tsega even billed his onetime friend as an easy target, the court had heard.

                          Michael Swan

Tsega had originally been on trial for second-degree murder, but the judge spared him a murder conviction and instead found him guilty in June of manslaughter. The judge said the Crown had failed to prove an essential element of second-degree murder, namely that Tsega, who was not at the scene of the crime, knew the robbery plot would end in murder.

It was just after midnight on Feb. 2, 2010, when three masked men, dressed in black with handguns drawn, stormed Swan’s home and forced him and his friends to their knees at gunpoint, court heard. They demanded to know where he kept his dope and money, but Swan wouldn’t give it up. He even refused after they pressed a gun into his back.

“I don’t know,” Swan, 19, told them.

Those were his last words.

They shot him. The bullet pierced his heart. He was dead in less than a minute.

They then ransacked the home and stole two kilos of weed and $3,000.

In sentencing Tsega to nine years in prison, Aitken said he didn’t have the foresight to know someone would end up dead. The judge called him a young naive man who made a foolish decision, but reminded the court: “But for Tsega, this home invasion and killing would never have occurred … He got the ball rolling by giving the information and had the power to put the brakes on the operation.”

She added: “It was a tragic and senseless killing that has forever changed the fabric of the Barrhaven community.”

The manslaughter conviction and sentencing come after six years of legal proceedings for Swan’s family and friends. His parents withstood a long trip through the criminal justice system, sitting quietly in court across four convictions, and listening to horrifying details about their 19-year-old son’s last moments. At best, they say, they felt like spectators, victimized by it all.

“You have been living a parent’s worst nightmare for the last seven years,” Aitken said.

She said the justice system failed the Swans by taking so long to prosecute the young men who killed their son, and she blamed the delays on the complexity of the evidence, a lack of resources, and decisions by both the Crown and defence lawyers.

Tsega, who was expelled from Carleton University after he was charged, was credited with 17 months for pre-trial custody. 

Aiken said she hopes the family can move forward and not be defined by the tragedy, but it’ll be hard for them to put it behind them, what with parole board hearings down the road.

To Dale and Rea Swan, the number of years Sam Tsega got “really matter at this point.”

The Swans didn’t have a problem with the sentence, but they were beside themselves by Tsega’s apology.

“It never ends for us,” Dale Swan said moments after the trial. He said he’d like to leave it in the past “but his loss is with us everyday.”

Alex Swan said no number of years will bring his brother back. 

Tsega is the final accomplice to be sentenced. Kristopher McLellan, the shooter, was convicted of first-degree murder, and the other two masked accomplices, Kyle Mullen and Dylon Barnett, were convicted of second-degree murder.

At Barnett’s sentencing hearing last year, Swan’s father, Dale, a private man, stood up in court to finally put a human face on his family’s tragedy: “I take exception that I have to do this in open court and before one of the very individuals responsible for my son’s death. This, in itself, I consider a form of victimization, but I realize this will be my only opportunity to try to put a human face on what has been, up to now a very cold, clinical, detached legal process.”

Aiken said on Thursday that listening to the Swan family’s victim impact statements marked her saddest time in 20 years on the bench. 

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Carson Morin says he killed out of fear, not greed. 

The Orleans man, just 20 at the time, was running strippers and one of them had left his grip and cut him out of the profits. When he went to collect his money, he found Michael Wassill standing at the front door, trying to protect the young dancer.

Morin, now 24, says he killed Wassill in self-defence, and on Tuesday the jury at his first-degree murder trial started hearing his side of the story.

In opening statements by defence lawyer Natasha Calvinho, court heard that Morin had a plan on May 15, 2013, but that murder wasn’t part of it.

Morin was afraid to go collect his money. He went just the same because he needed the money. He had been shot at in the past and was afraid he’d be attacked again, particularly after talking to Wassill on the phone when he asked if he could come over to his home, where the stripper was living. During the call, Morin said, he heard voices in the background that sounded like the same guys who tried to kill him in the past. 

His lawyer told the jury that Morin will testify about the deadly fight between him and Wassill.

Michael Wassill had his throat slit at his home on May 15, 2013.

“Carson will tell you that he was scared and that he took the knife (box cutter) out of the front pouch of his hoodie to get Mike off of him, not to kill him. Carson was just trying to get Michael Wassill to release the grip he had on him — he was just trying to fend off the person who had ahold of him,” Calvinho told the jury. 

“He was scared for his life. … He was scared and just wanted out. That’s why he took the X-Acto knife out, pushed the blade up and swung blindly behind him. To escape. To free himself. To run in fear,” Calvinho said.

Then, when Morin saw Wassill grab at his bleeding neck, he panicked and ran.

Morin later turned himself in to police, but not before dumping the bloody knife, gloves and changing his clothes.

The defence lawyer told the jury that Morin has been wracked with remorse since the killing.

“He’ll tell you about the shame, the remorse, the fear and the heartache he lives with everyday, knowing that his actions caused the death of another. And he will tell you about how he has cried, how he is alone, scared and in jail,” Calvinho told the packed court.

Morin took the stand in his own defence, and in examination-in-chief, his lawyer guided the jury through his troubled life story to establish that the “moment-of-panic” killing was in part due to the “paranoia and fear” that have cordoned him.

Morin testified he had a difficult childhood. He was raised by a drug-addled father and a mother who had to work long hours to raise him alone after divorce. Her job took her to Detroit, where, as a teen, Morin ended up in jail for weed possession and stealing a set of golf clubs. He thought the streets were “violent and unpredictable” but his four months in county jail proved far worse.

“I had a very hard time in there. I was young, I was small and I was white. I had a really hard time. … I just wanted to survive so I did what I had to do,” Morin told the jury.

He was deported back to Canada in 2010 and his father picked him up in Windsor, Ont., and Morin got a job in commercial flooring. But he got laid off and hatched a plan to run a network of strippers in Ottawa. (He installed a stripper’s pole and mirrors at his Orleans condo so the girls could practise their trade.)

The jury heard he had a criminal record in Ottawa for theft and assault and served a month in jail. He had one of his strippers sign a contract saying she’d pay the bills and take care of his condo while he was in jail. She let the bills pile up and trashed the place, Morin told court.

The prosecution’s theory is that Morin killed for greed and that Wassill, known as a stand-up guy who never let his friends down, spent his final moments in life trying to protect his friend, the stripper he had encouraged to leave Morin. Wassill had let her stay at his Orleans home and it cost him his life, prosecutors contend.

The trial continues Wednesday in courtroom No. 35 at the Elgin Street courthouse. 

gdimmock@postmedia.com

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For Carson Morin, it was all about the money.

And he wanted to make a lot of it by running a network of strippers.

“The more money, the better,” Morin told the jury at his first-degree murder trial on Wednesday.

The Orléans man is on trial for the May 15, 2013 killing of 20-year-old Michael Wassill, who prosecutors say spent his last moments in life trying to protect a stripper who was trying to escape Morin’s grip. On the day in question, Morin, wearing latex gloves and armed with a box cutter, showed up at Wassill’s front door looking to collect money from the woman who had sought refuge with Wassill. 

Morin’s defence team has already admitted that he killed Wassill, but say he did so in self-defence.

On Wednesday, Morin, 24, took the stand in his own defence for a second day. He was testifying not about the day of the killing, but rather his business plan for building a stripper empire. He installed a stripper pole in his Orléans condo, complete with mirrors, so his new recruits could nail down their dance sets. He gave advice on what they should wear — “stripping is all about looking good,” he said — and helped come up with stage names and pick the music for their dancing routines.

It was all part of what he called “the operation.” And with the very first woman he recruited for his nascent stripper empire — the same woman who ultimately fled Morin to hide out with Wassill — Morin would take a cut of her profits. (The woman’s name is protected by a publication ban.) 

Morin testified that it was a joint operation that had both him and the woman splitting what she earned. He testified that it was an equal partnership and that they both had the combination to the safe where they kept the daily cash proceeds from dancing shifts and selling drugs.

Morin told the jury that he has a “strict, moral policy against drugs” and in the same breath said he routinely delivered drugs on behalf of his first stripper recruit, who testified earlier at trial that she sold drugs on the side, around five times a day.

Morin is expected to testify about the deadly fight between him and Wassill later this week. The defence theory is that Wassill had a hold of him, and that Morin, scared for his life, swung a box cutter “blindly behind him” to free himself, and in self-defence.

Then, when Morin saw Wassill grab at his bleeding neck, he panicked and ran.

Morin later turned himself in to police, but not before dumping the bloody knife, gloves and changing his clothes.

The defence lawyer told the jury that Morin lives with shame, remorse and heartache knowing that he killed a young man he considered “nice and very smart.”

Prosecutors have a much different theory about the killing, saying that Morin’s own texts reveal that he had been brooding about revenge. 

Ian Bush, the Ottawa consultant on trial for the 2007 killings of three seniors, has now admitted that a hair root found at the scene of the crime is in fact his.

His defence team, led by Geraldine Castle-Trudel, made the key admission Thursday, moments before prosecutors called a hair-and-fibre expert to the stand.

The prosecution’s case against Bush, 61, is anchored in DNA evidence and security video from a nearby bus stop capturing images of Bush before and after the killings of retired tax court judge Alban Garon and his wife Raymonde, both 77, and Marie-Claire Beniskos.

The victims met an awful end: Hog-tied, beaten and suffocated. All three had plastic bags over their heads. The judge had a hangman’s noose around his neck, and had been beaten about the head. They were all found in a pool of blood in the living room of their condo, on the 10th floor of their building on Riverside Drive.

The prosecution’s theory is that Bush, enraged over a bitter tax feud, targeted the retired chief justice of Canada’s tax court in a murderous revenge plot.

Beniskos, a friend of the Garons who lives in the same building, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’s alleged. She had dropped by to make plans to catch a movie with the Garons later that day.

Ottawa police seized handwritten journals from the accused killer’s home, and prosecutors have told the jury they contain the ramblings of a madman who had deep hatred for the taxman. In the journals, tax collectors were described as the “lowest form of humanity” and likened them to extortionists.

Police also found a toolkit for murder that included duct-tape, rubber gloves, a sawed-off rifle, ammunition and plastic bags (the ones with suffocation warnings).

Bush, who took notes in the prisoner’s box, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder in the first degree.

While the jury has heard that Bush’s hair root was found by police at the scene of the crime, it hasn’t heard any explanation because it’s not yet the defence’s turn to call evidence, if they decide to do so.

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The triple-murder trial of Ian Bush took a strange twist on Friday when the jury heard that DNA evidence linked another man to the bloody crime scene.

Police had found a partial DNA profile in their sweep of the Riverside Drive condo where retired tax judge Alban Garon, his wife Raymonde, and friend Marie-Claire Beniskos, were bound, beaten and suffocated in June 2007.

Antony Thavaratnam, 57, never set foot in Ottawa until 2009, some two years after the killings.

The Toronto warehouse shipper, who has been ruled out as a suspect, was called to the stand on Friday.

It was a bit of work for him to get to the Elgin Street courthouse. He finished his night shift at 12:45 a.m., went home to change his clothes so he could get to his paper routes (Toronto Sun and Toronto Star), then drove to Ottawa but not before getting lost along the way.

Under examination-in-chief by Assistant Crown attorney Tim Wightman, Thavaratnam said he didn’t recognize Bush (seated in the prisoner’s box) and when shown photos, said he didn’t know the victims and had never been to their home.

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Geraldine Castle-Trudel, the witness was asked if he knew why he was called to court.

“My blood, some murder or something,” he testified.

The lawyer then suggested he must have been shocked when he got a call from an Ottawa homicide detective.

“Not really shocked. It’s impossible anyway. I didn’t do anything. I work and sleep, that’s my life,” said Thavaratnam, who said he works 364 days a year.

“You’ve never lost your blood in an apartment in Ottawa?” the lawyer asked in court.

“No,” he replied.

Thavaratnam was ruled out as a suspect after police concluded there was a low probability the partial DNA profile was a good match. He was also interviewed by police.

At the trial on Friday, the jury also heard about an “arrogant and insulting” letter that Bush, now 61, sent to the retired judge, in which he summoned him to his home for a bizarre hearing. The faxed letter, first reported in the Citizen in 2015, summoned Garon to appear at an address in Orléans — Bush’s home — to review a decision that dismissed his income-tax appeal.

The prosecution theory is that Bush — enraged over a bitter tax feud — targeted Garon, the former Chief Justice of Canada’s tax court. The judge, according to prosecutors, was the “focal point of his rage” and that his wife, also 77, and Beniskos, 78, were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

After incriminating DNA evidence linked Bush to the killings in 2015, police searched his home and seized a toolkit for murder, which included duct-tape, rubber gloves, a sawed-off rifle, ammunition, and plastic bags (the ones with suffocation warnings). Ottawa police also found his handwritten journal, which contained the ramblings of a man who wrote that tax collectors were the “lowest form of humanity” and likened them to extortionists.

In a key admission earlier this week, Bush’s defence team said that a hair root found at the crime scene is in fact his.

The trial continues Monday at the Elgin Street courthouse.

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It’s not every day that you hear a killer say he wore latex gloves for a boost of confidence, and then publicly liken it to a scene from an Adam Sandler movie.

But then again, Carson Morin had a lot to explain away.

After all, it was Morin, who on May 15, 2013, showed up at Mike Wassill’s Orléans home to collect money from a stripper who had left his grip and sought refuge with Wassill, whose throat was slashed as he tried to protect the stripper from Morin’s rage, according to prosecutors.

The jury at Morin’s first-degree murder trial has been told by his lawyers that he killed in self-defence, that he swung blindly behind him out of fear to break free of Wassill’s hold just inside the front door.

Morin, 24, testifying in his own defence on Monday, told the jury that he’s “on trial for my life right now,” and said he was afraid to collect the debt.

Morin — who had dreams of running a stripper empire from his Orléans condo — said he’d been set up by women in the past, ambushed and shot at, but he needed the money to make rent so he went to collect. 

Under examination-in-chief by his lawyer Natasha Calvinho, Morin said he parked his Acura in Wassill’s driveway, donned latex gloves and, out of fear, grabbed a box-cutter before going to the front door. “It was for my own protection. It was a last resort. I didn’t intend to use it,” he testified.

Michael Wassill’s throat was slit at his home on May 15, 2013.

Asked about the latex gloves, he said they calmed his nerves and gave him confidence. He likened it to a scene in the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy, where the kid gets confidence by wearing sunglasses. 

He said he walked up to the front door and could see the stripper, whose name is withheld by court order, sitting inside on the stairs. Wassill opened the door and told Morin he couldn’t see her and was “aggressive”, Morin said. When Wassill began to lift his arm, Morin instinctively pushed Wassill.

It was Morin’s fourth day on the stand and he became emotional while recounting a conversation with Wassill, known to friends and family as a standup guy who was always there for his friends. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Morin said.

The jury has been told that Morin would testify that he swung blindly behind him in a fight, then panicked and ran at the sight of Wassill grabbing at his bleeding neck. Morin later turned himself in to police after dumping the bloody knife and gloves and changing his clothes.