Couple sought to kill random stranger
Pair plead guilty to New Year’s Eve abduction, murder of Ontario teacher
ST. THOMAS, Ont. — A couple who entered surprise guilty pleas on Friday to the kidnapping and murder of a popular kindergarten teacher in Sarnia, Ont., had planned their New Year’s Eve attack and selected their victim at random, court was told.
Tanya Bogdanovich, 34, and Michael MacGregor, 22, “had been planning the abduction, rape and murder of a random victim on New Year’s Eve,” assistant Crown attorney Renee Puskas said in an agreed statement of facts at the Elgin County Courthouse in St. Thomas, south of London, where pre-trial motions in the case were taking place. Noelle Paquette, who taught at St. Matthew Catholic School in Sarnia, was kidnapped by the couple while walking alone in the city’s downtown after leaving a New Year’s Eve party early Jan. 1, 2013, according to the statement of facts.
Media reports early in the police investigation linked Bogdanovich and MacGregor to an online relationship through a social media networking site for people interested in bondage, dominance and submission and sado-masochism. On Friday they sat in separate Plexiglas prisoner’s boxes, with tight security around them, their backs turned to the packed gallery where family and friends of the victim sat. Both agreed their pleas were voluntary.
According to the brief statement of facts, the couple had been driving around in Bogdanovich’s white Pontiac Grand Prix when they spotted Paquette walking alone. Bogdanovich dropped MacGregor off so he could follow her on foot. Then, she pulled up to Paquette and the teacher got into the car.
From there, the couple drove their victim 18 kilometres into the country. “Paquette was directed at knifepoint approximately 170 metres into a forested area where she was raped and then attacked with knives wielded by both Bogdanovich and MacGregor,” Puskas said. “She succumbed to her injuries in the forest.”
The pair were arrested in London on Jan. 3, 2013, the day after Paquette’s body was discovered. Puskas said they had travelled to that city for MacGregor to receive surgery “to repair injuries to his hands incurred as a result of a knife attack on Noelle Paquette.”
Paquette’s family and friends, led into the courtroom through a side door, filled most of the courtroom. Many cried throughout the proceeding. Some wore clothing emblazoned with the logo for Noelle’s Gift, a children’s charity created in Paquette’s memory.
The family left through the side door without speaking to reporters. The defence lawyers, in brief statements, told reporters the couple had entered guilty pleas as “an expression of remorse.”
“Mr. MacGregor neither sought, nor will he receive, any benefit as a result of the guilty plea and he, in fact, has entered his plea and it is, in fact, an expression of remorse,” said his lawyer, Brian Grys.
Bogdanovich’s lawyer, Natasha Calvinho, echoed Grys’ comment, saying her client’s guilty plea “shows a great deal of remorse in law.”
Calvinho said Bogdanovich looks forward to the sentencing hearing “to show who she is beyond this mere horrible act.”
The case will next be in court on Feb. 10, when a comprehensive statement of facts is expected.
Paquette was directed at knife point approximately170 metres into a forested area where she was raped.
RENEE PUSKAS ASSISTANT CROWN ATTORNEY