Tax rage fuelled slayings, court told DNA evidence linked to suspect, jury hears
• Ian Bush kept a rambling, handwritten journal about his deep hatred for the tax man.
He also kept a tool kit for murder.
Enraged over a bitter tax feud, the Ottawa consultant targeted a retired tax court judge in a murder plot he executed on the morning of June 29, 2007, allegedly hogtying the elderly judge, the judge’s wife and a friend, then beating them and suffocating them to death with plastic bags in their Ottawa condo.
In opening statements at Ian Bush’s triple murder trial on Wednesday, Assistant Crown Attorney Tim Wightman revealed the police theory to the jury, saying the accused’s “focal point of rage” was Alban Garon, a retired chief justice of Canada’s tax court.
The prosecutor also revealed horrifying details about the crime.
Garon, 77, was found with a plastic bag over his head, and a hangman’s noose around his neck. He had been beaten about the head. The judge, his wife Raymonde, also 77, and their friend Marie-Claire Beniskos, 78, were found in a pool of blood on the living-room floor the day after the killings when a worried relative knocked and opened the unlocked door to Unit 1002 in the high-security building.
The jury — 11 men, one woman — heard that Ottawa police found DNA evidence at the crime scene that they matched to Bush years later.
Bush took notes and sat confidently in the prisoner’s box on the first day of his trial on three counts of firstdegree murder.
After linking Bush to the killings in 2015, police searched his home and seized a tool kit for murder, which included duct-tape, rubber gloves, a sawed-off rifle, ammunition, and plastic bags (the ones with suffocation warnings). Ottawa police also found his handwritten journal, anchored in the ramblings of a man who wrote that tax collectors were the “lowest form of humanity” and likened them to extortionists.
The jury also heard about an “arrogant and insulting” letter that Bush, now 61, sent to the retired judge, in which he summoned him to his home for a bizarre hearing.
In one of his writings, titled “Process,” the accused triple killer lists what appears to be all the usual ingredients for crime — from gaining access, to securing “parties, cash, plus credit cards and pins, assets,” right down to leaving his “calling card.”
Bush also kept several bogus identification cards in a wallet, including an RCMP inspector’s ID, a hydro worker’s ID, a federal government ID card and a delivery man’s ID, court heard.
The jury also heard that Raymonde Garon had told friends about an odd visit from a delivery man two days before the killings. The delivery man said he had a package for her husband, but when told he wasn’t home, the man said he’d return another day.
The jury was also told they will hear other key evidence linking Bush to the triple killing — including a bloody shoe print at the scene believed to be from a New Balance sneaker that Bush wore back in 2007. Police were also able to match rope found at Bush’s home to the rope used to hog-tie the victims.
June 29, 2007, was supposed to be a day of leisure for Alban and Raymonde Garon. They were scheduled for a lunch with friends, followed by an afternoon of sailing in Aylmer. Raymonde was recovering from surgery and had just checked her blood pressure in the kitchen, according to her own records. Later that morning, MarieClaire Beniskos, a neighbour and close friend who lived on the same floor, dropped by to go over their plans that night to catch a movie.
Minutes later, an intruder stormed in and terrorized his victims before killing them.
The prosecutor told the jury that they didn’t fight back, and noted there were no signs of a struggle, with furniture and framed photographs left undisturbed.
The court also heard about security video of Ian Bush captured at a nearby bus station minutes before and after the killings.
Ian Bush, who was vehemently opposed to taxation, has pleaded not guilty and the trial, presided by Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin McKinnon, is expected to last two months.