Firefighter died of strangulation, Crown insists
Fate of man accused of killing wife’s boyfriend in judge’s hands
Michael Hiller admits he had a violent altercation with Joe St. Louis outside a Windsor home two years ago but insists he was not the killer of the Lakeshore district fire chief.
In closing arguments on Wednesday following a manslaughter trial before Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance, lawyer Evan Weber argued his client was merely trying to protect himself from a much larger man whom he feared on that night.
“There is no unlawful act,” said Weber. “Mr. Hiller’s actions were to defend himself.”
But the prosecution countered that Hiller, 45, was an angry and jealous man on the night that St. Louis, 51, died and that there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to pin the death on him.
“This night is Mr. Hiller’s responsibility, it’s not anyone else’s,” said assistant Crown attorney Craig Houle.
Houle cited the trial testimony of expert witness Dr. Edward Tweedie, the forensic pathologist who conducted a post-mortem on St. Louis after he was taken off life support on March 29, 2018. Pointing to internal neck injuries and blood spotting under the eyelids, Tweedie concluded St. Louis died of strangulation from neck compression that stopped his heart, perhaps in as little as 10 seconds of sustained pressure.
Hiller, St. Louis and Mary Botosan — described by Weber as Hiller’s wife and St. Louis’s girlfriend — had had a verbal confrontation at a Huron Church Road pub on the night of March 23 and early morning of March 24. Hiller returned to the married couple’s nearby home on Daytona Avenue first, followed a short time later by Botosan and St. Louis.
There was a confrontation at the front door that spilled out into the yard. St. Louis, who collapsed facedown onto the lawn, was vital signs absent when paramedics arrived. He never regained consciousness, being declared dead five days later.
Nobody claimed to have witnessed the armlock or other pressure applied to St. Louis’s neck that the pathologist said was the likely cause of death given the types of internal injuries he sustained. Weber suggested a very inebriated Botosan, whose testimony he described as being “of a very poor quality,” could have caused the fatal injuries to St. Louis in her initial CPR attempts to revive him.
Weber also pointed to testimony from Tweedie during cross-examination when he agreed there were “alternate explanations” for each of the injuries sustained.
Houle said Tweedie was confident of his conclusion as to the cause of death and that it would have taken “a constellation of coincidences” for the pathologist’s various findings to not all point to strangulation as the cause of death.
“Strange things sometimes happen,” said the judge.
“It’s the choke that killed Mr. St. Louis,” said Houle.
And it was Hiller who was “the instigator” that night, he added, pointing to video surveillance from Jake’s Joint showing Hiller addressing Botosan — whom he called a “whore” and other things at the bar — and signalling to St. Louis to join him at his table.
“It wasn’t Mary Botosan who was the troublemaker that night — it’s Mr. Hiller,” said Houle.
Both the Crown and the defence poked holes in the testimony of each other’s witnesses. Acknowledging some of the issues with Hiller’s own evidence when he testified, Weber said it’s “not the role of the court to figure out what happened.”
The bottom line for the accused, said Pomerance, is that “he doesn’t need to prove anything, he just needs to raise reasonable doubt.”
The judge announces her decision on guilt or innocence April 24.