New trial ordered in 2012 arson-murder case
An Ottawa man convicted of first-degree murder in the fiery death of his debilitated mother has successfully appealed a jury’s rejection of his “not criminally responsible” defence.
René Goudreau will receive a new trial to determine whether he was suffering from a mental disorder that would absolve him of criminal responsibility in his mother’s murder by arson.
Lucie Goudreau, 53, was found “lying in her bed, dead, and badly charred” by fire crews in the early hours of Nov. 27, 2012, according to a decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
She had multiple sclerosis and couldn’t move from her bed to her wheelchair without assistance. There were no batteries in the Bayshore apartment’s smoke detector at the time of the fire, and emergency responders had to force open the door to Goudreau’s bedroom as it was blocked by a chair.
Goudreau’s son and caregiver, René, then 30, was observed outside the building’s main lobby, with a clear view to the chaos in the apartment he shared with his mother. Two boys reported hearing Goudreau mumbling: “I need this money,” “She doesn’t understand me,” and “I did it because I had to.”
A security camera captured Goudreau drawing a dollar sign in condensation on the lobby’s window.
He was arrested later that morning and charged with first-degree murder.
Goudreau had a history of mental illness and had previously been found not criminally responsible (NCR) for an assault on his father. Initially, he was found unfit to stand trial in his mother’s death and underwent treatment at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre.
After treatment and reassessment, the first-degree murder trial began in October 2015. The Crown laid out evidence showing Goudreau purchased four insurance policies on his mother’s life between January 2011 and August 2012, with more than $560,000 payable in the event of her accidental death.
Goudreau was identified as the sole beneficiary.
While Goudreau’s defence said the fire started accidentally, it didn’t convince the jurors. They returned a guilty verdict on Oct. 28, 2015.
Then came the trial’s second stage, in which the same jury was tasked with deciding on Goudreau’s NCR defence. He was assessed by a forensic psychiatrist, who concluded that Goudreau had type-one bipolar disorder at the time of his mother’s death, with manic and psychotic symptoms.
While the psychiatrist was “quite confident” Goudreau wasn’t faking illness to avoid prosecution, he couldn’t say for sure whether Goudreau had understood what he was doing to his mother when he killed her or that it was wrong.
Then came the moment on which Goudreau’s appeal hinged. The jury asked the trial judge if Goudreau would be eligible for the insurance payouts if he was found NCR.
The judge, Patrick Smith, answered by telling the jurors that the insurance policies Goudreau took out on his mother’s life were filed as trial exhibits — to which they had immediate access — and that they contained “the contractual terms for payout between (Goudreau) and the insurance companies.”
The jury went on to reject the NCR defence and repeated the earlier verdict that Goudreau was guilty of first-degree murder.
Goudreau’s appeal argued that the trial judge’s answer to the jury’s question had been “legally flawed” in that it allowed the jury “to take into account an irrelevant consideration” when it came to deciding on the NCR defence: “namely, whether he would be enriched financially if found NCR in respect of the killing of his mother.
“The appellant argues that any insurance payout was a collateral consequence of an NCR verdict that had no bearing on the jury’s deliberations and, as a result, should have garnered the strongest possible caution from the trial judge regarding the misuse of such information.
“By pointing the jury towards the insurance policies, the trial judge potentially encouraged them to focus on this irrelevant consideration,” the Court of Appeal decision read.
The court sided with the appellant by concluding that the trial judge had “committed legal error.” The judge should have answered the jurors’ question by saying they were not to consider the consequences of their verdict, Justice David Brown wrote for the threejudge appeal panel.
The court allowed Goudreau’s appeal and ordered a new trial to determine whether he was criminally responsible for his mother’s killing.
The minimum sentence for first-degree murder in Canada is life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 25 years.