Two women were ‘beaten, violated and strangled’
In life, Pamela Kosmack and Leeanne Lawson were strangers, both vulnerable women who turned to the sex trade to feed their hard drug habit.
Their only connection was their killer, and notably how he killed them, prosecutor Lisa Miles charged in her opening address to the jury on Day 1 of Marc Leduc’s murder trial.
“Pamela Kosmack and Leeanne Lawson had one thing that linked them: Marc Leduc’s DNA,” Miles told the jury Thursday.
Both women — Kosmack in 2008 and Lawson in 2011 — were strangled after a violent struggle, the jury heard. Both were found naked from the waist down, had been severely beaten about the head, and both had bite marks.
The prosecutor reminded the jury that justice is blind and that both victims had friends and family who cared about them deeply and who mourn their deaths to this day.
“There is justice for all, no matter how fortunate, no matter how marginalized,” Miles said.
The prosecutor then guided the jury — six women, six men — through the expected testimony to be heard at the sex-killings trial.
The case is anchored in DNA evidence and the chances of its matching someone other than Leduc are one in the quadrillions, the prosecutor said.
Kosmack, a 39-year-old mom, was found on the morning of June 4, 2008, in a grassy clearing by a bike path near Britannia Park in the west end.
Her body told the story about her violent end.
“She had been beaten, violated and strangled,” the prosecutor said.
The night before, Kosmack had met up at a friend’s nearby apartment and had been in good humour when she left, court heard.
“She would never be seen alive again, ” Miles said.
Her half-naked body was found 12 feet north of the bike path by dog walker Carole Doiron.
Years later, on Sept. 2, 2011, an Ottawa police officer found the body of Leeanne Lawson, 23, in a parking lot off King Edward Avenue, not far from the shelter she called home.
Lawson had also been beaten, violated and strangled, the jury heard.
The jury will hear evidence that firmly establishes that Leduc knew both of his victims — Lawson from the shelter and Kosmack from the old Royal Britannia Pub.
“He had both the motive and opportunity to brutally murder Pamela Kosmack and Leeanne Lawson,” the prosecutor told jurors at the end of her opening address.
The trial’s first witness was Doiron, the dog walker who found Kosmack’s body early on June 4, 2008.
She recounted the shocking discovery and how she flagged someone down to call 911.
She recalled saying, “‘I think I found a dead body.’ ... We were both in shock.”
Responding police officer Const. Joseph Defranco also testified, recounting the Kosmack crime scene and how he preserved it for the forensic unit and detectives.
The trial, presided over by Ontario Superior Court Justice Hugh McLean, continues.