Crown argues for Tremblay to be jailed indefinitely
Latest conviction was for criminal negligence in deaths of two teens
A man convicted in the deaths of two teenage girls should be declared a dangerous offender and receive an indefinite jail sentence, a prosecutor argued Monday.
In February 2013, Martin Tremblay was found guilty of two counts of criminal negligence causing the deaths of Kayla Lalonde, 16, and Martha Jackson, 17.
The teens died after Tremblay, who had plied them with alcohol and drugs while they partied at his Richmond home, failed to call for help when they suffered overdoses.
Tremblay has a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for sexually assaulting five girls more than 10 years ago.
He also faces charges of sexually assaulting four more girls, who the Crown is hoping to call at the dangerous offender hearing that opened Monday in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.
Crown counsel Michaela Donnelly told Justice Bruce Butler that Tremblay has a history of targeting girls from broken homes who are heavy users of alcohol and drugs, and often of aboriginal descent.
Donnelly noted that there are three options for sentencing at a dangerous offender hearing — an indefinite jail term, a determinate jail sentence followed by a lengthy supervision order or a determinate jail term. She said Tremblay’s behaviour has been “aggressively persistent” and he deserves to be put behind bars indefinitely.
Outside court, Herman Bee, the father of Kayla, admitted that he’d lived a life behind bars but said he loved and missed his daughter and called Tremblay a “dangerous” man who is a menace to society.
“In the long run I don’t want anybody to feel the way we feel now. Sad and hurt. I think of my daughter saying, ‘Daddy I love you, Daddy, I miss you.’ I don’t hear that any more.”
Bee’s sister Eliza Willier, who raised Kayla from age four until she was 15, said Kayla was a loving, trusting girl who ran into the wrong person.
“Nobody deserves to die like that,” Willier told reporters. “Sure, they were rebellious teenagers, but that was their only fault.”
The hearing is expected to run for several weeks and hear from a number of police officers, corrections officials and psychiatrists. The judge is also expected to hear a constitutional challenge to the dangerous offender laws that has been filed by Tremblay’s lawyer.