‘I was part of it,’ teen says on tape

BATHTUB MURDER In bathroom as mom died, court hears ‘I was the one who mixed her drinks’

A teenage girl told a friend she helped her sister plan their mother’s death, but never actually drowned her in the bathtub, a court heard yesterday.

“ I was there. I was part of it . . . I was the one who mixed her drinks,” the 16- year-old teen told her friend in a conversation secretly videotaped by Peel police. “ I stood right behind her ( her older sister). I was two feet behind her ( in the bathroom).” The disturbing conversation, played before a Brampton courtroom, took place with a 19year- old male friend as they sat inside a police- supplied car in the parking lot of a Mississauga church on Jan. 17, 2004, almost a year after the murder.

Four days later, she and her 17year- old sister were arrested for allegedly plotting the murder of their 44- year- old mother, whose death in the bathtub on Jan. 18, 2003, was ruled an acci-

dental drowning due to alcohol consumption. The teens, now 19 and 18, have pleaded not guilty to first- degree murder in what legal experts say is the first case in Canada where two teenage daughters are being tried for killing their mother.

Their identities are protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act, as is the identity of all civilian witnesses and the deceased woman. The teens were just 15 and 16 when Crowns Brian McGuire and Mike Cantlon say they planned their mother’s murder and then spent several hours with friends at a Mississauga Jack Astor’s restaurant, using the gathering as their alibi. They returned home and called 911, telling the operator they had found their mom dead in the bathtub.

In December 2003, a man, now 21, went to authorities with information suggesting the girls had caused their mother’s death. He agreed to act as a police agent, allowing several incriminating conversations between him and the girls to be secretly intercepted. On Monday, in a videotape played in court in the judge- alone trial, the older teen was shown telling the agent that she not only drowned her mother after making sure she was drunk and had taken numerous Tylenol 3 pills, but that her original plan was to set her mother on fire after she passed out on her bed because of booze and pills.

In an equally chilling conversation played in court before Judge Bruce Duncan yesterday, the younger teen tells her friend that she was in the bathroom when her sister held her mother’s head under the water until she died. Both girls tell their friend during the recorded conversations that they murdered their mother because her excessive drinking was ruining their lives and that insurance money played no role in the murder. The younger teen initially refuses to talk about her mother’s death, choosing instead to talk about how much she loves to smoke pot and consume magic mushrooms, an illegal hallucinogenic drug, with her boyfriend. But when the friend tells her during another secretly recorded conversation a few days later that he feels as if he’s “ an accomplice” because of what he knows, she tells him to “ chill- lax, and smoke a doobie.” She tells him he shouldn’t worry about her or her sister because “ they honestly know how to take care of ourselves.” She says she and her sister have “ screaming fits” and “ crying rages” and incidents of “tearing pillows” when they think about what they did, but they have become adept at hiding their feelings from everybody.

“ We know how to act very well,” she tells him, including how they managed to fool police the day of the murder by telling them their mother had drowned. When the friend asks her why her mother never tasted the pills she consumed, she tells him that her mother willingly took “ a bunch” of Tylenol 3s — supplied by her boyfriend — at their suggestion. She also says in the taped conversation that her mother was “ way too drunk to notice anything was wrong.”

“ We used her weakest point against her,” she says, referring to the fact their mother regularly got drunk and passed out. “ We didn’t put any pills ( in her drinks). She took them ( pills) herself.

“ We know how people react to certain things and use that to our advantage.” The teens says she and her sister planned their mother’s murder for “ several months,” telling the agent it was the culmination of “ building rage” that had been ruining their lives for years. She says she doesn’t regret killing her mother and that she would “ do it again” if the “ exact same circumstances” occurred with her life. The teens are currently free on bail and under house arrest.

In cross examination yesterday, the friend denied he went to police because the older teen had rejected his romantic advances. He also rejected defence lawyer Robert Jagielski’s suggestion that he saw working with police as a chance to be viewed as a “ celebrity” or a “ big man on campus.”

Although he admitted he betrayed the girls’ confidence and that he was a religious and moral person, he told Jagielski that he felt justified in going to police because the Bible says “ thou shall not kill.” The trial continues Monday.