Prison death punishment set
N.S. sex offender beaten to death in Ontario prison
An Ontario Superior Court justice has sentenced a prison inmate to life in jail with no parole eligibility for 11 years for the beating death of a Nova Scotia man in the Bath Institution in Ontario two years ago.
Dwayne Dilleon, 42, had originally been charged with first-degree murder in the Feb. 24, 2022, death of Darrin Philip Rouse, but after a preliminary inquiry was committed to stand on the lesser charge of second-degree murder. He pleaded guilty to that charge Friday, March 8.
Rouse, 55 and originally from North Kentville, was in the prison serving an 11-year sentence resulting from five convictions between 2018 and 2020 for sex-related crimes, including one involving a 13-year-old girl
Bath is a medium-security facility next to Millhaven Institution, about 20 minutes outside Kingston, Ont.
On March 8, the court was told that at about 11 a.m. on the morning of the killing, staff at the jail heard a banging noise from a washroom, and arrived to find Rouse on the floor and Dilleon stomping on his head several times.
Crown attorney Monica Heine, reading from an agreed statement of facts, said that as officers removed Dilleon from the washroom, ”he said ‘Don’t. I’m not finished yet.’”
Heine said that another inmate who was in the washroom at the time told an officer that he saw Dilleon grab Rouse’s head from behind and smash it into a urinal about 10 times, and when Rouse fell to the ground, he stomped on his face five or six times yelling “die” repeatedly.
Heine said that Rouse’s injuries “were so severe that (staff) were unable to recognize him initially.”
Rouse had a faint pulse and was breathing at that point, Heine said, but died about 30 minutes later.
Dilleon was placed in a cell to await the arrival of police, and while there said that he started punching Rouse after he started talking about Dilleon’s mother. No details about what was said about her were included in the agreed statement of facts.
Heine said a piece of metal with cloth wrapped around it was found on Dilleon when he was searched, but it was never determined whether that was used in the assault.
SERVING TIME FOR SECOND-DEGREE MURDER
Dilleon was in jail serving a sentence for second-degree murder with no parole eligibility for 10 years after being convicted in September 2004. Heine said he has either been denied bail or has not applied for release since then.
The new conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no chance to apply for parole for 10 years. In her submissions, Heine said the joint submission with defence lawyer Judyth Rekai for a 11-yeaar period of parole ineligibility “gives Mr. Dilleon the credit that he deserves for taking responsibility and pleading guilty, saving the court, province and family the time and torture of a trial.”
Rekai said by pleading guilty, “Mr. Dilleon has shown his remorse. He’s always intended to enter a plea of guilty to the act he committed.”
She said the two years to bring the matter to a conclusion was because she had concerns about his mental health.
She said it took about a year to get his medical records.
“I still have some real concerns of his suffering from paranoia that led him into this… I’d very much like to see some further assistance to him to deal with his anxieties and his mental health.”
There was no evidence presented to the court of any mental health issues Dilleon might have been experiencing.
UNJUSTIFIED
Dilleon told Justice Sylvia Corthorn that he was sorry for what happened and “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
In handing down her sentence, Corthorn said that
“as severe as the beating Mr. Rouse received was, it was far exceeded by its senselessness… nothing Mr. Rouse said could have justified Mr. Dilleon’s reaction. That reaction demonstrates a complete and total lack of respect for human life.”
In October 2021, Rouse was transferred from the Atlantic Institution in Renous, a maximum-security facility, to Warkworth, a medium-security prison in Campbellford, Ont. It’s not known when he was transferred to Bath.
When he was killed, he had seven years and eight months left on his sentence, but was eligible to apply for parole in May of that year.
TRADED DRUGS FOR SEX
Rouse’s last sex crime conviction came in February 2020 when he was sentenced to seven years for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, and for trafficking in prescription pills as part of that offence.
The other sex-related convictions between 2018 and February 2020 were for sexual interference against the teenage girl’s younger sister, and two separate cases of trading drugs for sex from women.
The sister was 13 when Rouse started to groom her and convinced her that she loved him, forcing the unwitting teen into sex. Even though the girl believed she was in a relationship, at that age she cannot consent to sex.
Rouse was last in court in December 2020, when he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault after being charged in 2018 with three counts of sexual assault.
That case involved a woman who was 19 years old when she rented a room from Rouse in 2009 after moving to Nova Scotia and finding work.
previous Rouse also had two convictions for sexual assault, one involving a woman in 1999, for which he was sentenced to 15 months, and another in late 2004 involving a 16-year-old girl who was babysitting for him, for which he received a three-year jail term.
Rouse had been assaulted several times in prison, and one of his victims said she received many notices when he was being transferred back
institutions. and forth between She assumed the transfers were for his safety after threats or other assaults.
At his 2020 sentencing hearing, Rouse said that “everywhere I go, someone wants to kill me.”
He had been assaulted in prison at least twice at that point, and was put in solitary
received confinement any time he threats, court was told at the time.
Rouse had also claimed that on the day before his
conviction release in 2006 on the involving the babysitter, an inmate was killed in the same New Brunswick facility. Rouse said that inmate’s name was found on a paper “hit list” that had Rouse’s name next.