GUILTY PLEA IN MOM'S KILLING
Stabbed to death in drunken fight two years ago
Moments after Lennese Kublu, just 18, stabbed her mother to death in a drunken fight, she wanted to call the police but her abusive, controlling boyfriend said he'd kill her if she did.
Dwight Brown instead forced her to help toss her mother's corpse into a dumpster outside their Penny Drive row house on the night of Jan. 10, 2019. She was then forced to clean up the bloody mess inside.
These unsettling details were revealed in an agreed statement of facts filed at Kublu's plea hearing in Ottawa court Friday.
Kublu, originally charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Susan Kuplu, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter
Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger accepted the plea and said the evidence supported a finding of guilt.
He then released Kublu on strict bail conditions, including counselling for addiction and her mother's death.
“I hope you do your very best. I'm rooting for you. I really am, so give it your best shot,” the judge told Kublu.
The judge also commended Assistant Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham, defence lawyer Diane Condo and police detectives who worked the case.
Kuplu's family also supported the manslaughter deal.
“I commend everybody. This is the right thing,” the judge said.
Court had heard details of how Susan Kuplu's life met an awful end in her kitchen at the peak of a drunken fight, with her daughter knifing her to death on the floor as her career criminal boyfriend urged her to kill.
“Kill her, kill her!” Brown incited after giving her the knife.
In a bizarre, drunken request, her own mother was also urging her to kill and that's when Kublu stabbed her at least seven times, including a fatal wound to her right lung.
“That's when I killed her as she wished,” she later told police.
Kublu and Brown then caught a Greyhound to Toronto only to be arrested in an unrelated shoplifting case.
In a gruelling interview with Ottawa police detectives on Jan.
She misses her mom so much and now it is time for her and her family to take the time to heal.
25, 2019, Kublu at first denied killing her mom but eventually gave a four-page, written confession.
The Inuk teen was interrogated for nine-and-a-half hours. At one point, she cried for an hour straight, and by the end of it, she was sick to her stomach.
Police found Kuplu's body at the Trail Road dump after a threeweek search.
In the weeks leading up to the killing, Kuplu's home life was anything but safe.
In a Nov. 24, 2018 text to relatives back home in Nunavut, she revealed that her daughter's boyfriend beat her up.
Brown, who is in jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter last year, has a history of violence against women — including Kuplu and her daughter, court heard.
Lise Kuplu remembers her closest sister as a loving woman who fell on hard times after their father died.
“She loved her family and all of her kids very much,” Lise previously told this newspaper.
She said her sister called daily just to tell her family she was grateful and she loved them. Kuplu and her daughter moved to Ottawa years ago, when her grandfather came to the city for cancer treatment.
“She's a very good kid,” Lise said of Kublu.
While she is grieving the death of her sister, she is fully supporting her niece, her bail plan and her sentencing circle — a community-based hearing focused on healing and finding a fit sentence.
Condo, Kublu's lawyer, said the young woman “deeply regrets” what happened.
“She misses her mom so much and now it is time for her and her family to take the time to heal. It is a resolution that her mom's family also want.
“They are very supportive of Lennese and want to be able to heal in their traditional ways with her.”