Woman feared for her life
Verdon tried to smother her, victim testifies
Convicted killer Jeffrey Verdon tried to smother his girlfriend with a pillow when she asked him to move out of her Mississauga condo, the woman testified at his dangerous offender hearing on Monday.
She was trying to break up with him when he dragged her to the bedroom, threw her on the bed and held a pillow down on her face, she said.
“He was on top of me. I couldn’t breathe. I was gasping for air. I have asthma.”
It wasn’t the only time he hurt her during their sixmonth relationship, which began in 2006, she said.
On an disastrous date night, Verdon had a violent fit while driving down Yonge Street in Toronto because he could not find the restaurant where he had made a reservation, she said. “He was yelling at me, pulling my hair and he did punch me,” she testified. “He was in a rage.”
When he parked, she took off running from her abusive and controlling boyfriend for the nearest subway station to return home, she said.
“It just breaks you on the inside. It hurts. It doesn’t tickle when someone pulls your hair,” she said.
On Friday, the woman had described a different version of the same incident, mentioning Verdon’s rage but not his violence.
After a voir dire, a judge ruled that the woman could review a detective’s notes, taken during a pre-testimony interview on Aug. 14 2013, to refresh her memory on three violent incidents.
In addition to the smothering and driving rage incidents, she also described on Monday how Verdon smacked her after he had sex with her against her will. On Friday, she testified the sex was forced but did not mention that Verdon hit her. Verdon was not charged in relation to that allegation.
The woman testified that a few days after he tried to smother her she went to police to get a restraining order against Verdon. During crossexamination, she admitted she continued to see Verdon for months after they broke up and even went to visit him while he was working in Fort McMurray.
Now 46, the woman said she did not want to come to Ottawa to testify about Verdon so many years later.
“It takes time to heal,” she said. “Just when everything is going away, I have to come here and relive it.”
Verdon, 36, has a long and violent criminal history.
He is facing a dangerous offender designation after he was convicted of a violent episode at a different girlfriend’s apartment in November 2011. Verdon repeatedly bashed a property manager’s head into a doorway, shouted death threats and grabbed a crying, elderly landlady as he followed her down the street.
He was 18, when he and another teen drunkenly beat an Ottawa Citizen delivery man to death for $55 and a car battery. He was convicted of manslaughter.
Days after being released from prison, he was arrested for head-stomping a bouncer while intoxicated.
If designated a dangerous offender, he faces an indeterminate sentence. The designation is meant to protect the public from violent offenders with a high risk of recidivism.