Brutalized, left for dead, doused with bleach …
Hamilton man pleads guilty in horrific sex attack on seven-year-old
This story contains graphic content that was read into the court record.
THE LITTLE GIRL was wearing a Hannah Montana T-shirt, little green jeans and pink and white socks.
She was playing in the hallway of their central Hamilton apartment building — left alone just for a moment by her 11-year-old brother while he went to grab them each a bottle of water from their apartment — when she was lured away by a predator.
The man — a new neighbour — approached her in the hall. She’d seen him once before, when she’d noticed him watching her from a balcony of their Sanford Avenue North building as she played on the swings in a park across the street.
She thought his name was Sean, but it is actually John — a man who, with his girlfriend, was crashing at a friend’s apartment while she was away, just down the hall from the little girl.
Some weeks earlier, John Adam Greene had told his girlfriend he was thinking about killing people.
He said he had “an itch to hurt people” and was going to snap and really hurt someone. He told her that if he was ever wanted for something serious, he would “just go on a killing … just go out with a bang.”
His lawyer, Larissa Fedak, says that in the weeks leading up to this, he had in seven instances reached out to at least one mental health agency and a city hospital for mental health care.
Fedak says he was turned away. It’s unclear what happened in those circumstances, but Fedak says he was not held for care.
“Come on,” 29-year-old Greene said as he approached the girl in the hallway that day. She went with him into his apartment.
She went upstairs and Greene pushed her on the bed.
He brutally assaulted her, sexually and physically, to the point that he thought she was dead.
He then poured chlorine bleach onto her injured body to destroy the evidence.
In court Friday, Greene — wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, his hair grown long, gelled and messy — pleaded guilty to abducting, sexually assaulting and trying to kill the seven-year-old girl.
The May 17 attack was interrupted when the Hamilton man’s girlfriend — who had gone out to run errands without any keys — banged on the locked apartment door. He answered sweating and shirtless, breathing heavily.
“We got to go. We have to go right now,” he told her.
She asked what he’d done. He told her he thought he had killed someone. She tried to go upstairs but he grabbed her.
“If you love me, you will go with me. I think I killed someone upstairs.”
She heard someone take a big gasp and then heard crying. She ran upstairs and found the girl lying on the bed, crying and bleeding heavily from her head.
“Oh my God, she’s alive. OK, let’s go,” Greene said.
His girlfriend began hitting him, screaming, asking how he could’ve done this.
He restrained her, severely bruising her finger and twisting her ankle, before fleeing the apartment.
His girlfriend stayed with the girl, consoling her and helping her dress as she cried for her mom. She asked her what had happened, and the girl told her Greene had hurt her really bad, had punched her and touched her “pee pee.”
The apartment smelled like bleach and blood had been smeared on the bed and wiped off by bleach. Greene’s girlfriend wiped some of the blood from the girl’s f ace and brought her back to her mother. They called 911.
She was taken to hospital where she was treated for a several injuries including a concussion, bruising and cuts across her f ace, neck and chest and bleeding from her ears and head.
Back at the apartment, police discovered a plastic bag with clothing and a bleach bottle in one of the stairwells.
Around 6 p.m., Greene approached a woman in the parking lot of the Royal Bank on Upper James Street.
“I have a f---ing gun. Give me the f---ing keys. Don’t think I won’t f--ing use it,” he told her, with one of his hands hiding in his pocket. She handed over the keys.
An hour and a half later, a police officer spotted the stolen car downtown.
An officer followed but Greene took off — fast — going the wrong way down King Street East. The chase was called off for safety reasons.
Then just before 10 p.m. surveil- lance cameras at a Highway 6 gas station caught Greene filling the car with gas and then taking off without paying.
Three days later — following extensive media coverage — Greene turned himself in to police.
During his interview, he told the detective “it was like every day, every day that I left the apartment, I always thought I was gonna kill somebody … a couple of guys could have got killed this week.”
“How did my mind get to the point where every little situation I just want to f---ing kill someone,” he told them.
In court Friday, Greene stared straight ahead as the graphic details of the vicious attack were read out as part of the agreed statement of facts.
Greene was originally charged with attempted murder, abduction, sexual interference, aggravated sexual assault and assault bodily harm as well as probation breaches in relation to the May 17 attack.
He pleaded guilty Friday to attempted murder, sexual interference, abduction, three counts of breach of probation and robbery.
If you love me, you will go with me. I think I killed someone upstairs.
WHAT JOHN ADAM GREEN TOLD HIS GIRLFRIEND
He will return Jan. 5 for sentencing, when the court will hear of the impact of the attack on the girl and her family.
At this point, the Crown will also formally file a dangerous offender application, which will include a mental health assessment.
Referencing the several times Greene had tried to get help in the weeks leading up to the attack, lawyer Fedak said of her client, “I wish he hadn’t been turned away.”