Defence admits murder but in second-degree
Curtis Healy is guilty of murder, his lawyer conceded Wednesday, just not in the first degree.
Defence counsel Shamsher Kothari told a Calgary jury they should have no difficulty finding that Healy murdered Dawns Echoes Baptiste on a wintry morning in the backyard of a home in the city’s northeast.
But Kothari argued there was too long a time gap for when the murder was committed to find Healy also raped Baptiste at the same time.
Under the Criminal Code, murder is elevated to first degree if it is committed in the course of a crime of dominance, such as sexual assault or unlawful confinement.
However, in her submission to jurors, Crown prosecutor Carla MacPhail said there is little doubt Healy confined, raped and intentionally killed Baptiste in one continuous act.
MacPhail noted Healy’s confession to homicide Det. Colum Cavilla established that.
Healy admitted attacking Baptiste, whom he’d just met a short time earlier, early Feb. 11, 2015.
He told Cavilla he became enraged when she told him to get lost, punched him in the face and tried to stab him.
Healy said he threw Baptiste to the ground on a Whitehorn sidewalk, stomped her head repeatedly and hit her with a vodka bottle. He then dragged her through a hedge to a backyard, where he raped her.
Following the sexual assault, Healy said he retrieved a large rock from the front of the house and returned to “finish her off.”
MacPhail said it’s clear Healy was unlawfully confining Baptiste when he dragged her unconscious, or nearly unconscious, from the sidewalk through the bushes and sexually assaulted her.
The rock was used to complete the deadly attack, she said.
But Kothari noted there was a lengthy gap between when the offender and victim were captured on CCTV leaving the Whitehorn LRT station at 12:08 a.m. and when Healy was next captured on surveillance footage at a 7-Eleven store at 2:51 a.m.
“This case is about two hours and 43 minutes in the early morning hours of Feb. 11, 2015,” he told the six-man, six-woman jury.
He said Healy’s statement to Cavilla was “inherently unreliable,” suggesting the accused for the most part parroted words the officer put in his mouth.
As a result, jurors should not be able to determine Healy sexually assaulted the victim around the same time he killed her. “The sequence of events and the timing remain unclear,” Kothari said in seeking a conviction on a reduced charge of second-degree murder.
Justice Charlene Anderson will give jurors final instructions on the law Thursday before they begin deliberations.
The sequence of events and the timing remain unclear.