A New Kind of Monster (30 page)

The dueling claims and counterclaims stirred fierce debate and much bad feeling in Tweed, still reeling from the criminal charges. Villagers wondered if the property transfer was what Williams had been referring to when he wrote in his April prison-cell message that he had put his personal affairs in order.
“This just flies in the face of what appears to be natural justice. It has a scheming, conniving kind of feel to it,” said longtime resident Wayne Kay, a retired accountant and former sales director of Price Waterhouse Cooper. “Frankly, it's outrageous. This has created a lot of suspicion, and anywhere you go, it's the talk in town. The colonel's wife has become a huge discussion point.”

Nor was there much applause in Tweed when it transpired that the OPP had agreed to reimburse Harriman $3,000 for damage to the hardwood floors in the Ottawa home, incurred during the police search. In Orleans, where the couple had lived for fourteen years, there was more residual sympathy for Harriman's situation, but those former neighbors could only guess at what she was going through. George White and the other members of the Wilkie Gang had sent her a letter of support shortly after Williams was arrested, but months later they had still heard nothing back. The small group who made up Harriman's inner circle of close friends also stayed silent, as did the Heart and Stroke Foundation, rebuffing all inquiries about her.

Nothing was immediately resolved. As usually happens when civil lawsuits run parallel to criminal cases, the suit took second place and was put on hold. The hearing to address Harriman's bid for a publication ban was pushed back until January, by which point it was expected that the multitude of criminal charges facing Williams would have been resolved.

And now, in October, it was time to do just that.

E
veryone involved in the Williams guilty plea and sentencing in October knew ahead of time that the repulsive facts of the case were going to be tough to deal with. A little of the collective shock had by then eased. Williams had swiftly been replaced as 8 Wing commander by the able Colonel Dave Cochrane, whose competent affability had done much to help cauterize the Trenton air base's wounds. Tweed, too, greatly settled down once it became evident the danger had passed and that the killer the village had barely known would never be coming back.

The close relationship between Tweed and 8 Wing/CFB Trenton, too, was reaffirmed and burnished. All through the investigation the military police at Trenton, part of the National Investigation Service, had been working closely with the OPP to ascertain Williams's comings and goings over the previous year. But the military also made efforts to reach out to the village of Tweed. In June, Cochrane made a special trip there to address councillors and help locals launch a light-hearted Elvis-themed community fundraiser. Cochrane didn't mention his predecessor by name but made clear the village's staunch loyalty was not taken for granted. “People in uniform are amazed at the strong support shown in small communities such as Tweed,” he said. “You'll find that all the military members feel a sense of pride
being part of this community, and want to work with everybody as we move forward.”

But in the midst of that healing process, the day had come to face Williams's crimes head-on. Now, as proceedings got underway in Belleville, the full horror of what Russell Williams had done was about to go under a microscope. For many of the reporters packed into the courtroom, there was a special challenge: a few days before the hearing got under way, Superior Court judge Robert Scott had agreed to a media request that live blogging be permitted, enabling information to be transmitted to the world in real time via laptop computers and BlackBerrys.

It was not the first time bloggers had been allowed to report from inside a Canadian courtroom, but with the attention the Russ Williams case was getting, this would be by far the biggest venue. The other usual rules remained in place: no photos, no video, no live audio. It was to be a four-day hearing, and perhaps because it was not a trial but rather a largely scripted event, the experiment for the most part worked well, instantly generating heavy traffic on news websites.

The blogging wasn't as easy as it might have looked, and the hardest thing, made doubly difficult in such a fiercely competitive environment, was deciding what could be reported and what could not, because much of the evidence was too frightful to describe. And the horrific material was only part of the pressure felt by reporters, all struggling with ever-demanding editors who seemed to want everything, right now. In the pre-Internet era, reporters could think in terms of the next edition, or the next newscast. Now everything was live, with fresh developments and new angles surfacing all the time—sometimes accurate, sometimes not. It was like trying to chase a boulder rolling down a hill.

One of the first to line up in the cold outside the Belleville courthouse early each morning was seasoned CBC Radio
reporter Dave Seglins, who like most crime reporters has seen more than his share of murder and mayhem. Here is part of what he wrote shortly afterward for J-Source, a Canadian Journalism Foundation website:

Seglins's frayed nerves were a common phenomenon among the press at the Williams hearing, and the only thing that kept most of us on an even keel was each other. Crime reporters tend to be a collegial bunch—far more than in other areas of news, such as, say, political coverage—because the work is often so difficult, and if you don't need a friend today, you surely will tomorrow.

It was no accident that the agreed statement of facts covering Williams's crimes was so complete and so graphic. Crown attorney Lee Burgess and the rest of the prosecution team had made a
strategic decision that almost nothing pertinent would be withheld or glossed over. The decision drew a lot of criticism, because the events were so appalling, but it was the right thing to do. The trauma inflicted on Tweed, Belleville, Trenton, Brighton and the Ottawa suburb of Orleans had been so enormous, and the back-story so complex, that only a full rendition of what Williams had done would suffice. All along, the police investigation had been extremely secretive. Now that it was near its end, a truncated account of events assuredly would have stirred suspicions of a cover-up. Instead, the facts came out, and helpful court officials expedited an efficient system that made the court exhibits readily available.

The hearing began with Williams entering a guilty plea on all eighty-eight charges. One by one, as he stood ramrod-straight in the prisoner's box, the long list of offenses was read out by the court clerk, beginning with the two counts of first-degree murder and then on through the long series of sexual attacks and house break-ins, beginning in September 2007, in which he either stole lingerie or hunted for it. At the end, he was asked how he pleaded to all eighty-eight. “Guilty, your Honour,” he replied in a clear voice, and sat down—one of the few people in Canadian judicial history to plead guilty to more than one charge of first-degree murder.

Williams already looked alone, bereft of support, viewed with disgust by almost everyone in the courtroom and by the military, which lost no time in further distancing itself from him. Later the same day, General Walter Natynczyk, Chief of the Defence Staff, issued the following statement on behalf of the Canadian Forces:

After entering his eighty-eight guilty pleas, Williams sat down as Burgess and co-prosecutor Robert Morrison began to read out the lengthy agreed statement of facts, which Burgess advised the court would be “extremely disturbing, the evidence will cause emotional pain for the loved ones of victims.” In the body of the court were close to forty spectators who were either victims or friends and relatives of victims. Jessica Lloyd's mother and older brother sat side by side, the former clutching a framed portrait of her slain daughter. Looking on from the jury box were OPP lead investigator Detective Inspector Chris Nicholas and Belleville police chief Cory McMullan.

The events were laid out chronologically, beginning with the first two burglaries in Tweed in 2007 and then methodically detailing how Williams broke into each home, the photographs he took and the items he stole. Many of the photos were shown on the twin TV screens at the front of the courtroom, and the killer would occasionally glance up at them for a moment—never longer.

As the evidence was presented, it became grimmer and grimmer, as Morrison outlined what he called Williams's “dangerous escalation.” Some spectators wept, many just shook their heads in disbelief, almost everyone was aghast. After court adjourned
at the end of that first day, Andy Lloyd told reporters that as well as being shocked, he was angry. “I have lots of friends with teenage daughters, and it's terrible. Nobody likes to hear something like that. Sitting in there today and just hearing the stuff he did that doesn't even involve my sister makes me just as a Canadian angry … as a regular human being it makes me angry.”

Day two was immeasurably worse, as the prosecution outlined the circumstances of the two sex attacks in Tweed, and then the two ghastly murders. No photos or video clips were shown. Instead, a detailed written synopsis was read out. It was a chronicle of violence and depravation so awful that neither Lloyd's brother nor her mother were present in court to hear how she died. As Burgess reached the point in his narrative, near the end of Lloyd's ordeal, when she said to Williams, “If I die, will you tell my mom I love her,” the sound of weeping filled the courtroom.

Burgess spoke for everybody. “We are a community transformed by his crimes. And no doubt the feelings are the same in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans … And what makes this more despicable is that this was a man considered above reproach. He betrayed this community and he betrayed the military … No doubt he laughed at us as he [pursued his double life].” Recounting the murder of Comeau, and how she fought for her life, the prosecutor asked rhetorically: “Can there be any greater contrast of courage and cowardice? Can there be any greater contrast of evil and good?”

The agreed statement of facts complete, Williams rose once again and was formally convicted on all charges.

On day three, the court watched and heard segments of his ten-hour interview with Detective Sergeant Smyth on February 7, in which he had confessed, calmly describing the two murders and how he had carried them out. There is a moment near the
beginning of the interrogation, before he realizes he's trapped, where he looks up and grins confidently at the police video camera recording the encounter. As he did so, cries of disgust rippled through the courtroom.

The court also released photo exhibits of letters Williams had written to his wife and to his victims during a break in that interrogation, after he confessed. Smyth had asked him if he wanted to do so and he had said yes.

To his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, he wrote:

To Lloyd's mother, he wrote:

The note to Ernest Comeau, the father of Corporal Marie-France Comeau, reads:

It was the second time Williams had written to him. As mentioned earlier, a few days after Comeau's death a letter written on the 8 Wing commander's letterhead had dispatched his condolences.

To Jane Doe, his first sex assault victim, Williams wrote: