(Quebec) The grandmother of the “little girl from Granby” attended a hearing in the Court of Appeal in the capital on Tuesday. She wanted to be there to ensure that justice is severe for the murderer, who is asking for a new trial and a reduced sentence.
Published at 2:42 p.m.
The murderer, who we cannot name by court order, has appealed the guilty verdict, which carries a life sentence with no chance of parole for 13 years. The stepmother, with the father’s help, had held the 7-year-old girl captive and tied up just before she died of asphyxiation in April 2019.
“I wanted to be here because the only time I didn’t go [au procès]my guy dealt with the lawyers and he was just held captive,” the woman said in the corridors of the Quebec courthouse.
Her son, the father of the 7-year-old girl, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of kidnapping in December 2021. He was released last May.
“He’s been out for a while now. He didn’t last long,” the grandmother laments of her son. “There’s been no justice there, but I hope there’s going to be justice here.”
The stepmother, who had added duct tape around the girl’s face, was found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder and false imprisonment in December 2021.
In her appeal heard by the Court on Tuesday, the murderer is requesting a new trial. Her lawyer put forward several arguments. He particularly deplores the fact that the trial took place in Trois-Rivières rather than in Montreal.
Let us recall that the defence had requested that the trial not take place in the district of Bedford, given the difficulty of finding jurors in this area where the case had been highly publicized. The accused was targeting Montreal, a city with a larger population base. Trois-Rivières was ultimately chosen. The mother-in-law’s lawyer, Maxime Hébert-Lafontaine, believes that the trial judge should have heard the defence’s arguments to this effect.
“This case, whether it was in Montreal, Trois-Rivières or Percé, would have made the same noise,” commented Judge François Doyon. “I have difficulty seeing the difference between a trial in Montreal or Trois-Rivières…”
Text messages in the dock
The text messages between the stepmother and the girl’s father are also at the heart of the appeal. According to the defense, they were obtained illegally. The stepmother’s phone had been combed through without judicial authorization, deplores the lawyer of the 40-year-old woman.
A trial judge had found that there had been a violation of the accused’s rights, but that the intrusion was “minimal.”
The defense said the text messages between the stepmother and father should not have been admitted. At the very least, the trial judge should have given the jury clear instructions about their value.
These messages were used by the Crown to show that the stepmother had long held an aversion to the little girl. “There is an inflammatory nature to the text messages, I don’t think we can doubt that!” said Me Hébert-Lafontaine.
Crown Prosecutor Me Laurence Bélanger believes that these text messages were extremely important for the jury, particularly because they ruled out the theory of a trivial accident.
” “If we had evidence of a loving relationship, and it came out of nowhere, then the jury might have had doubts,” she said. Furthermore, she notes that the trial judge excluded 300 messages from the evidence.
“I attended the trial. I understand perfectly that it took that to show the animosity she had towards the little girl for a long time, reacted the grandmother in the corridors of the palace. She hated her more and more, she was no longer able to stand her.”
“We miss her, she sang us songs, she danced in her little dresses… These things are unforgettable,” added the woman who had custody of the little girl from 2012 to 2015, before a court decision gave custody to the father.
“We went on a cruise with her. She was so happy. And then suddenly she went to hell at home. It’s so sad to see how she ended up.”
The murderer is also asking for her life sentence to be reduced, with the possibility of parole after 10 years instead of 13. Her lawyer points out the “violations suffered by the appellant”, in particular the abusive search, as well as the exceptional media coverage of the case.
The three judges of the Court of Appeal have taken the case under advisement. The decision will be known in the coming months.
Related News :