<img src="https://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada ... ze=620x465">
Russell Williams is escorted from court on Tuesday in Belleville
'You're going to kill me, aren't you?'
Adrian Humphreys,
National Post
Oct. 19, 2010
Belleville, Ont. — Marie-France Comeau, a 37-year-old Canadian Forces flight attendant, and Jessica Elizabeth Lloyd, a 27-year-old school bus scheduler, both showed their strength of character when Colonel Russell Williams bashed into their lives; each — in their own, very different way — tried desperately to survive the unimaginable brutality he heaped upon them.Russell Williams is escorted from court on Tuesday in Belleville
'You're going to kill me, aren't you?'
Adrian Humphreys,
National Post
Oct. 19, 2010
Corporal Comeau, like a good soldier, fought like hell, screaming, lashing out, trying to flee in such a clash the drywall in her home where she was attacked was dented and spattered with her blood and his. Ms. Lloyd’s struggle came from the other end of the spectrum, submitting to his every degrading demand in hopes he would reward her with her life. That both women ended up dead — bruised and battered, raped and desecrated — speaks only to the impoverished mental state of Williams, the former commander of Canada’s busiest military air base, and his unrelenting, mission-oriented determination to kill.
As court heard the full account on Tuesday of the two sex murders he has already admitted committing, cries and weeping swept through the crowded courtroom. And it became clear that nothing either woman said or did could have saved them. The meticulous and organized military man carefully planned and coldly executed each attack, first assembling a kit of tools, court heard. The kit expanded with each attack as he added utensils he found he lacked on a previous mission.
Williams had met Cpl. Comeau once on a military flight and learned that she lived alone in Brighton, Ont., 20 kilometres west of the air base. “As commanding officer he had access to her schedule and personal information, including her home address,” said Crown Attorney Lee Burgess. “He learned that she was away on a military-related trip in mid-November.” He broke into her house and scouted it thoroughly. He stole seven pieces of lingerie.
A week later, on Nov. 23, 2009, he completed his military duties at the base, turned off his BlackBerry and returned to her home. Donning a mask, he broke in through a rear basement window and could hear Ms. Comeau on the telephone upstairs. He hid near the furnace of her unfinished basement and waited 30 to 40 minutes for her to go to bed, but his presence had not gone completely unnoticed. One of Ms. Comeau’s two cats had wandered downstairs and discovered him.
“Ms. Comeau did not go to bed but instead came downstairs in search of one of her cats. She was dressed only in a shawl. The cat was staring at Mr. Williams concealed by the furnace and as she walked toward it she saw him,” said Mr. Burgess. “She did not know who it was as he had his face covered. She called him a bastard and was screaming at him. He subdued her by striking her multiple times in the head area with a red flashlight that he had brought with him.” But she continued to struggle, evidenced by blood and disturbed items across the basement. She was bleeding so heavily from her head that her hair left a bloody swirl on the floor.
He bound her hands with plastic ties, wrapped her eyes and mouth shut with duct tape and tied her to a metal support post in the basement while he secured the house. He used kitchen knives to hold a sheet over her bedroom window and erased evidence of his break-in from the outside. He found her house key and broke the end of it off inside the front lock to prevent anyone from entering. As he tried to move her upstairs, Ms. Comeau again fought back, leaving pools, streaks and splashes of blood as well as a large dent in the stairway. She relented only with unconsciousness. And Williams immediately reached for his camera.
He moved her to her bedroom and with head bound in a towel wrapped in duct tape, he repeated over hours the abuse and rape while carefully videotaping and photographing his various attacks. Still she looked to escape. “Her fingers are weakly fiddling with the rope in an effort to find the ends behind her back,” said Mr. Burgess, describing the video of the attack that was not shown in court.
When Williams went to check that the house remained secure, Ms. Comeau fled to a bathroom but Williams chased and caught her and another struggle ensued. Police would later find her blood — and his — smeared in the bathroom. “Even though she was bound with rope and gagged with duct tape across her mouth, she was able to fight him off,” said Mr. Burgess.
More than four hours after he crept into her basement, the fight was over. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you,” Ms. Comeau says on the video. “I don’t deserve to die” she says and begs him to go away and says that she’s been good all her life. “By this time Ms. Comeau is huddled in the corner next to her dresser,” said Mr. Burgess. “She tells him that she wants to live so badly and begs him to give her a chance. Mr. Williams walks slowly up to her and places, what is believed to be duct tape, on her nose.” Williams then again reached for his camera.
On Jan. 29, 2010, Williams moved to take his second victim. He did not know Ms. Lloyd but said he had seen her working out on a treadmill in her basement. Again, he broke in the beforehand. Again he returned with a kit of tools. He surprised Ms. Lloyd in her bed and there she forged her own path that she hoped would lead to survival.
“You want to survive this, don’t you?” Williams said to her in a quiet and calm voice, as his video camera was recording and she lay bound and blindfolded on her bed. Ms. Lloyd nodded and said yes. “OK, good, you are doing good.” She complies with his vile demands and stoically suffers abuse over hours until he lead her to his SUV, placed her inside and drove to his cottage in Tweed where his assaults continued. While there, Ms. Lloyd suffered a seizure and begged Williams to take her to a hospital. Gasping and stumbling, the video shows her panicking, saying she feels she is going to die.
“If I die will you make sure my mom knows that I love her,” she says. The next day, after another day of abuse, Williams told her he was letting her go. He helped her dress. “As she began walking, however, Mr. Williams struck Jessica Lloyd on the head with a flashlight. He believed this caused her to be unconscious on the floor. He then strangled her with some rope, and did so until her body stopped moving,” said Mr. Burgess. And Williams photographed her body.
Despite all of Williams’ planning, there was one thing he had not accounted for. While he was inside Ms. Lloyd’s home, several people noticed his SUV, unusually parked at the edge of her property. When she was reported missing, police were alerted to where the vehicles had been seen and tire tread marks and footprints were found in the frozen ground. Police analyzed both. Only three types of vehicles had the same wheel base measurements as the tracks suggested and only one brand of tire had the specific tread marks: Toyo Open Country HT tires.
In a clever piece of policing, a week after Ms. Lloyd disappeared, a roadside check stop was set up on the highway beside her home on Feb. 4 to stop all cars and speak to the drivers while another officer checked the tires. Within minutes, Williams was one of the first drivers pulled over. Both his 2001 Nissan Pathfinder and tires matched the profile. He was allowed to continue on his way. Now a suspect, police put him under surveillance and on Feb. 7, officers secretly watched as he drove to a public car wash and vacuumed out his Pathfinder. As soon as he left, police seized the contents of the vacuum canister.
That day, he was asked to come to a meeting with police. He arrived at an Ottawa OPP office an hour later. At 3:03 p.m., Detective-Sergeant Jim Smyth of the OPP’s behavioural science section, began interviewing Williams. Williams denied involvement in Ms. Lloyd’s disappearance, said he did not wish to have a lawyer present and consented to police taking a DNA swab, an impression of his boot print, and to take his BlackBerry for analysis. Just over an hour later, Det.-Sgt. Smyth confronted Williams with the boot print match.
“After a skilled and persistent interview” by Det.-Sgt. Smyth, Williams said he wanted to minimize “the impact on my wife.” He then asked for a map so that he could show where Ms. Lloyd’s body was. The floodgates opened. He admitted to killing Ms. Comeau and sexually assaulting two other women. Over the course of 18 hours of questioning by Det.-Sgt. Smyth, Williams recounted his two years and five month campaign of increasing indecency.
After two days of hearing Williams’ litany of crimes in court, Justice Robert Scott declared his finding of guilt on all charges. On Wednesday, prosecutors plan to show a two hour and 40 minute excerpt of the 18-hour interview of Williams and then more than a dozen victim impact statements are expected, primarily from members of Ms. Lloyd’s family. Just before he is sentenced, Williams will be given an opportunity to address the court. The question for most observers is what he might say.
