Closing addresses delivered to murder trial jury

Jealousy, anger, betrayal, revenge.

Those were Jeremy Gough’s motives for murder, Crown attorney Tyler Shuster said Tuesday in his closing address to a six-man, sixwoman jury in Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines.

Gough has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the bludgeoning and stabbing death of his former partner and the mother of his children, Jessica Scanlon.

The 29-yearold mother of two was found dead in the basement of her Chetwood Street home in St. Catharines on Feb. 23, 2015. She had been bludgeoned and stabbed 24 times.

The defendant took the stand in his own defence last week and testified he “snapped” and struck Scanlon in the head with a small bat called a fish bonker after she told him she had started a new relationship and she and their children might leave Niagara.

He said he “blacked out” during the assault and does not remember stabbing her.

The Crown contends that conversation never happened, rather Gough snuck into the home and lied in wait for Scanlon to return home after taking their children to school. Scanlon Gough

“There was no conversation. There was no blackout,” Shuster said. “Common sense tells you he concocted this story.”

Scanlon had ended her 10-year relationship with Gough less than a month before she died.

“When he realized he couldn’t have her back, he decided to kill her,” Shuster said. “If he couldn’t have her, no one else could.”

Court heard Scanlon was struck in the head with a blunt object between eight and 10 times.

“This was not a frenzied, unfocussed flailing,” Shuster said. “The attack was to Jessica’s head and that tells you he intended to kill her.”

A pathologist testified the majority of the knife wounds — including several that punctured her lungs, sliced her aorta and severed several ribs — were likely inflicted after the victim had died.

“This wasn’t a frenzied stabbing,” the Crown said. “These were focused on internal organs in the chest.”

Defence lawyer Bobbie Walker in her closing statement told the jury her client did cause the death of his former girlfriend but that he did not intend to kill the mother of his children.

“He has accepted responsibility for the unlawful death of Jessica Scanlon,” she said.

Gough had attempted to plead guilty at an earlier date to a charge of manslaughter but the Crown refused to accept a plea to the lesser offence.

“Jeremy might do many things without thinking, but a planned and deliberate murder is not one of them,” Walker said.

“This was not an execution, but a crime of passion.”

She said her client, who was beaten regularly as a child, had sustained multiple concussions over the years and there have been several incidents where he “blacked out” when he was angry.

Judge Joseph Henderson today will instruct the jury on the law and deliberations could begin this afternoon. alangley@postmedia.com