David Allan Harris B.A., LL.B., Published in the Burlington Post on March 7, 2001
As I reported in my last column, the Ontario Criminal Lawyers Association recently honoured Austin Cooper,
presenting him with the G. Arthur Martin Criminal Justice Award. This award was given in recognition of
Cooper's many years of service, both to his clients and to the public.
Susan Nelles was one of those clients. She was charged with four counts of first degree murder in connection
with the death of four babies who were patients under her care on the cardiac ward at the Hospital for Sick
Children and who died from poisoning alleged to have been caused by the deliberate administration of massive
overdoses of the drug digoxin.
Judge David Vanek presided over her preliminary hearing, which occupied
forty-one days of evidence from over one hundred witnesses and four days of argument by counsel.
During the
preliminary hearing, Crown counsel announced that there were not just four, but 24, babies who had died on
the cardiac ward in the same time frame, and in suspiciously similar circumstances. Those circumstances
surrounding the twenty additional deaths were admitted as "similar fact evidence"' for purposes of the
preliminary inquiry.
In return, Cooper prepared a chart and with the consent of the Crown, filed it as an
exhibit. The chart contained a list of the nurses who were on duty on each of the days when the 24 babies
died. This chart disclosed that Nelles was on duty on most but not all of the days when babies died and that
another nurse was on duty on all of the days when babies had died. Nelles was not, however, on duty on the
day of the death of one of the four babies included in the charges of murder laid against her. This was
critical since both the Crown and the defence assumed that one person was responsible for killing all four
babies. If Nelles did not kill one, it followed that she could hardly be found guilty of killing the others.
In the end Judge Vanek found that the evidence did not reach the threshold required to justify committal for
trial and he directed that Susan Nelles be discharged on all four charges of murder. Following this
decision, the Government of Ontario appointed a Royal Commission of Inquiry under Mr. Justice Grange of the
Ontario Court of Appeal to examine the circumstances the extraordinary number of deaths at the Hospital.
These hearings took well over a year to complete. At the conclusion, the Commissioner's report contained
statements expressly agreeing with Judge Vanek's decision in the preliminary hearing and generally approving
of his handling of the charges against Susan Nelles.
In his memoirs, Judge Vanek wrote " A defining moment, in my opinion, is an occasion when one is called upon
to bring the full force of one's life-experience in the solution of a difficult problem. My decision in the
Nelles case was a defining moment in my career as a judge." The case could also be called a defining moment
in Austin Cooper's career as a lawyer. The case of Ken Murray would also call upon the full force of
Cooper's life experience in the solution of a difficult problem. We will explore that more fully in my next
column. At this time, however, it is with sadness that I write that G. Arthur Martin, after whom the G.
Arthur Martin Criminal Justice Award was named, passed away last week. G. Arthur Martin showed his greatness
as both a criminal lawyer and as a judge of the Ontario Court of Appeal. The Martin Report brought the
administration of justice in this province into the modern era. We all suffer a great loss at his passing.
Canadian Press, (various newspapers across Canada, including the Toronto Star) Aug. 16, 2006.
ISLE LA MOTTE, Vt. A Montreal mother recovering from alleged self-inflicted
wounds will be charged in the coming days with murdering her 8-year-old son,
whose body was found in Lake Champlain, a Vermont state attorney said today.
I am going to prepare a charge of first-degree murder, Grand Isle States
Attorney David Miller said in a telephone interview.
Read More ..
A WOMAN who killed her infant son by jumping with him from the eighth
floor of a city apartment block has walked free after being convicted of
manslaughter.
Yeeda Topham, 40, of Roleystone near Perth, had pleaded guilty in the
West Australian Supreme Court to a charge of unlawfully killing
21-month-old James Topham on November 5 last year. Read More ..
LOS ANGELES, USA -- Murder charges are expected to be filed against a
woman whose infant son's body was found in a washing machine after firefighters
doused what they say was an intentionally set fire, authorities said Tuesday.
Latunga Starks, 32, was taken into custody last night, according to the
Sheriff's Department Web site.
Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Dennis Shirey identified the mother
and her nearly 3-month-old son, Michael Kelvin Thompson.
The Toronto Star, By Peter Small, Courts Bureau, March 01, 2008
Xuan (Linda) Peng has been found guilty of second-degree
murder in the drowning death of her 4-year-old autistic daughter
Scarlett in a bathtub in the family home.
A Superior Court jury returned its verdict Saturday morning
after two days of deliberations.
Scarlett Chen was discovered unconscious by her distraught
father David Chen in the tub on the second floor of the family's
townhouse on Rosebank Dr., near Markham Rd. and Sheppard Ave. E.
on July 12, 2004.
Peng told police that she had put their daughter down for a
nap in the adjoining bedroom, and had no idea she had climbed
into the bathtub, which the woman had filled with water to clean
some kitchen utensils.
However, seven months later, homicide detectives charged the
36-year-old Chinese immigrant with first-degree murder. The
charges were later reduced to second-degree murder. Read More ..
TYLER, TEX. -- A woman accused of fatally beating two of her sons with rocks spent Mother's
Day sobbing and muttering in a jail cell.
Deanna LaJune Laney, 38, remained on suicide watch yesterday at Smith County Jail, where she was held in
lieu of a $3-million (U.S.) bond on capital-murder and aggravated-assault charges.
Ms. Laney is accused of killing Joshua Laney, 8, and Luke Laney, 6, and injuring their 14-month-old brother,
Aaron. The toddler remained in critical condition yesterday at a Dallas Hospital.
In a call to emergency workers early Saturday, Ms. Laney reported that she had just "bashed their heads in
with a rock," Sheriff J. B. Smith said. Read More ..
Investigation into the Death of Zachary Andrew Turner (18
July 2002 to 18 August 2003)
Zachary Turner, a 13 months old baby, died at the hands of his fugitive
mother, Dr. Shirley Turner, who killed him and then committed suicide on August
18, 2003.
Turner was facing extradition to the United States to stand trial
for the 2001 murder of Dr. Andrew Bagby, Zachary's father.
28-year-old Dr. Andrew Bagby was found shot to death in Keystone State Park, 55
kilometres northeast of Pittsburgh, PA, U.S.A.
Turner fled to Newfoundland, Canada where Zachary was born. She was out on bail
against the wishes of U.S. authorities at the time of Zachary's death. Read More ..
Toronto - As a female friend of Frances Elaine Campione put it, this
after Ms. Campione was charged on Wednesday with murder in the death of
her two young children, "That mother needs a hug."
In that line, widely repeated in Toronto and national media outlets,
is a telling clue to what is so wrong with much of what happens both in
the nation's family courts and in its child-protection system -- the pervasive
view of the female of the species as constantly nurturing (except, you know,
when she allegedly kills) and as in need of constant nurture (hugs all 'round,
no matter what).
For the record, Ms. Campione was arrested two days ago after she phoned
911 to report that there were two dead children inside her Barrie, Ont.,
apartment, and shortly after, didn't police arrive to find the bodies of
her own little girls, one-year-old Sophia and three-year-old Serena.
She and her estranged husband Leo were reportedly in the throes of a
nasty custody battle, with Mr. Campione accused of assaulting his wife and
the older child, and Ms. Campione allegedly alarmed, and/or depressed, at
the prospect of losing that fight.
And The Globe has confirmed that involved with the family was the Children's
Aid Society of Simcoe County. At the moment, the nature of that involvement
is unknown -- except as it has been reported by neighbours who saw social
workers at the apartment and say that, for a time recently, the girls lived
with their paternal grandparents.
KINGSTON, Ont. (CP) -- An Ontario woman who was sentenced to 16 years
in prison in one of Canada's stiffest penalties for child abuse will be
released on full parole after serving less than half her term.
Lorelei Turner, 38, and her husband Steven were convicted of manslaughter
in July 1995 for beating and starving their three-year-old son John to death
in a case that horrified Canadians who followed the trial.
But on Wednesday, a panel of the National Parole Board in this eastern
Ontario city ruled Turner will be released but placed on probation until
July 2011.
Until then, she must remain within 25 kilometres of her residence, is
not allowed unsupervised contact with anyone under 16, and must continue
to receive counselling.
"The board would have looked at the risk and obviously found a low risk
to reoffend," Carol Sparling of the National Parole Board said Wednesday.
Jillian McCabe is seen in an undated photo provided by the Newport, Ore., Police Department. (Newport, Ore., Police Department)
The Associated Press, U.S.A., November 4, 2014
NEWPORT, Ore. -- A woman who said she threw her 6-year-old son off a historic bridge on the Oregon coast was arrested after the boy's body was found in the bay, police said.
Police and firefighters in the coastal city of Newport, Lincoln County deputies and the Coast Guard searched the bay with boats and a helicopter after Jillian Meredith McCabe, 34, of Seal Rock called 911 at 6:25 p.m. Monday to report throwing her son off the Yaquina Bay Bridge.
The boy's body was found at 10:23 p.m. in the bay after it was spotted near the Embarcadero Resort, police said.
Days after buying another woman Valentine's Day flowers, a Sydney father came home to find a trail of blood leading him to the bodies of his two young children lying next to their mother, a court has been told.
Australian Associated Press
Aug 24 2009
The woman had given the couple's three-year-old daughter and
four-year-old son rat poison and an unidentified pink liquid before
smothering them and killing them, court papers said.
She then tried to take her own life, the NSW Supreme Court was told.
Doctors agree the mother, from Canley Heights in Sydney's west, was
suffering from "major depression" when she poisoned her children on
February 19 last year.
She has pleaded not guilty to the two murders by reason of mental
illness.
As her judge-alone trial began, the mother's lawyer told Justice
Clifton Hoeben his client didn't think life was worth living after
learning about her husband's affair.
