mental
03-12-2009, 08:00 PM
PATRICK WHITE
Globe and Mail Update
March 12, 2009 at 6:28 PM EDT
SASKATOON — Two years and eight months after slugs from his 30-30 Winchester ripped through the skulls of two RCMP officers, Curtis Dagenais has been found guilty of the double murder.
A six-man, six-woman jury took roughly a day of deliberating to find Mr. Dagenais guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in the Saskatoon Court of Queen's Bench today.
The decision brought whoops of joy and a smattering of applause from the families of Robin Cameron, Marc Bourdages and Michelle Knopp, the three Mounties who, on the night of July 7, 2006, engaged in a brief shootout with Mr. Dagenais that left two of them dead and a third with bullet fragments in her torso and arm that remain to this day.
As the decision was read, Mr. Dagenais, 44, who fainted during testimony earlier in the trial, sat in the prisoner's box grim-faced and unresponsive.
The verdict was not clear cut. During the three-week trial, Mr. Dagenais's lawyer argued that his client was the subject of an RCMP vendetta and that he'd fired the fatal shots in self-defence, an offence that would involve lesser charges.
Crown prosecutor Al Johnson called that version of events a “fantasy” designed to “help him get away with murder.”
The jury apparently agreed, although they did ask Mr. Justice Gerald Allbright a number of procedural questions soon after being sequestered. This morning, they also reviewed taped radio evidence and testimony from Ms. Knopp, the officer who survived Mr. Dagenais's rifle fire with bullet fragments in her leg, torso and ear.
At the time, the deaths of Constable Bourdages, 29, and Constable Cameron, 26, were somewhat overshadowed by the Force's recent history of loss. Little over a year before, four officers had died at the hands of a gunman in Mayerthorpe, Alta., the biggest one-day loss of life in RCMP history. In hindsight, that summer night in rural Saskatchewan was one of the bleakest incidents in the history of the Red Serge.
Over the course of the trial, the Crown meticulously reconstructed the events that turned a remote dirt road outside Spiritwood, Sask., into a double-murder scene.
Prosecutors painted Mr. Dagenais as a reckless “police-hater,” who, on the night of the shootings, had assaulted his sister during an argument over family property involved in divorce proceedings between their parents.
When the three officers responded to the domestic spat, they found Mr. Dagenais stewing in his blue Chevy pick-up and staking out his mother's home.
As officers moved in to arrest him, Mr. Dagenais drove away from the small farm town, situated 170 kilometres north of Saskatoon.
The officers chased Mr. Dagenais for 30 kilometres down narrow, dusty roads before Bourdages and Constable Cameron t-boned the Chevy at a dead-end.
Constable Michelle Knopp testified that by the time she arrived in a second police truck, the scene seemed calm. She assumed her colleagues had arrested Mr. Dagenais.
And then came a bang. She noticed a hole in the window and felt blood trickling from her ear.
She fired back and then leapt from her truck. During tearful testimony, she told of discovering the unresponsive bodies of her two colleagues. Both had been shot in the head. They died in hospital nine days later.
With Mr. Dagenais still lurking, Constable Knopp fled to seek medical attention for wounds. He turned himself in to police after an 11-day manhunt
Globe and Mail Update
March 12, 2009 at 6:28 PM EDT
SASKATOON — Two years and eight months after slugs from his 30-30 Winchester ripped through the skulls of two RCMP officers, Curtis Dagenais has been found guilty of the double murder.
A six-man, six-woman jury took roughly a day of deliberating to find Mr. Dagenais guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in the Saskatoon Court of Queen's Bench today.
The decision brought whoops of joy and a smattering of applause from the families of Robin Cameron, Marc Bourdages and Michelle Knopp, the three Mounties who, on the night of July 7, 2006, engaged in a brief shootout with Mr. Dagenais that left two of them dead and a third with bullet fragments in her torso and arm that remain to this day.
As the decision was read, Mr. Dagenais, 44, who fainted during testimony earlier in the trial, sat in the prisoner's box grim-faced and unresponsive.
The verdict was not clear cut. During the three-week trial, Mr. Dagenais's lawyer argued that his client was the subject of an RCMP vendetta and that he'd fired the fatal shots in self-defence, an offence that would involve lesser charges.
Crown prosecutor Al Johnson called that version of events a “fantasy” designed to “help him get away with murder.”
The jury apparently agreed, although they did ask Mr. Justice Gerald Allbright a number of procedural questions soon after being sequestered. This morning, they also reviewed taped radio evidence and testimony from Ms. Knopp, the officer who survived Mr. Dagenais's rifle fire with bullet fragments in her leg, torso and ear.
At the time, the deaths of Constable Bourdages, 29, and Constable Cameron, 26, were somewhat overshadowed by the Force's recent history of loss. Little over a year before, four officers had died at the hands of a gunman in Mayerthorpe, Alta., the biggest one-day loss of life in RCMP history. In hindsight, that summer night in rural Saskatchewan was one of the bleakest incidents in the history of the Red Serge.
Over the course of the trial, the Crown meticulously reconstructed the events that turned a remote dirt road outside Spiritwood, Sask., into a double-murder scene.
Prosecutors painted Mr. Dagenais as a reckless “police-hater,” who, on the night of the shootings, had assaulted his sister during an argument over family property involved in divorce proceedings between their parents.
When the three officers responded to the domestic spat, they found Mr. Dagenais stewing in his blue Chevy pick-up and staking out his mother's home.
As officers moved in to arrest him, Mr. Dagenais drove away from the small farm town, situated 170 kilometres north of Saskatoon.
The officers chased Mr. Dagenais for 30 kilometres down narrow, dusty roads before Bourdages and Constable Cameron t-boned the Chevy at a dead-end.
Constable Michelle Knopp testified that by the time she arrived in a second police truck, the scene seemed calm. She assumed her colleagues had arrested Mr. Dagenais.
And then came a bang. She noticed a hole in the window and felt blood trickling from her ear.
She fired back and then leapt from her truck. During tearful testimony, she told of discovering the unresponsive bodies of her two colleagues. Both had been shot in the head. They died in hospital nine days later.
With Mr. Dagenais still lurking, Constable Knopp fled to seek medical attention for wounds. He turned himself in to police after an 11-day manhunt