Accused Steele-Morin pushes for video link
OTTAWA — Accused murderer and drug dealer Philippe Steele-Morin told an Ottawa justice of the peace Tuesday that he is tired of being moved from place to place to make his various Ontario and Quebec criminal court appearances.
Steele-Morin, who was arrested on March 12 in Buckingham after a lengthy nationwide manhunt, is charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Montrealer Tricia Boisvert.
The 36-year-old was killed in her Notre-Dame St. apartment in Little Burgundy. Her body was found six days later in a wooded area near Quyon in the Pontiac region northwest of Ottawa.
Boisvert lived in Gatineau for years before moving to Montreal and police believe she and her accused killer knew each other.
A handcuffed Steele-Morin, 30, appeared briefly by video and under guard from the cells in the basement of the Ottawa courthouse Tuesday to be remanded on charges related to trafficking cocaine and threatening a girlfriend.
When he heard that he would have to appear again in Ottawa next month, he objected and told Justice of the Peace Linda Pearson that he had to travel too much to meet his court obligations and wanted his next Ottawa appearance to be via video from Montreal, where his murder charge is being dealt with.
“I’m getting transferred all over the place,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Pearson ordered him to be brought to Ottawa for another court appearance on April 16, but said an effort would be made to establish a video link between the Ottawa and Montreal courthouses.
Another man, 31-year-old James Boucher, faces charges of being an accessory after the fact and of committing an indignity to a human body in connection with Boisvert’s Jan. 17 killing.