By Gurmukh Singh, IANS,
Toronto : The graphic accounts of Canada’s former top military commander Russell Williams, who has pleaded guilty to raping and killing two women and taping their ordeal and breaking into young women’s bedrooms to steal lingerie, has stunned and shamed the country.
The accounts were played Tuesday in courtroom that recoiled with horror when the prosecution ran tapes and photos (produced by the commander himself) of two badly battered and bleeding rape victims pleading for their life.
“Have a heart, please! I have been really good. I want to live,” begged 37-year-old Corporal Marie-France Comeau, after hours of beatings and repeated rape at her home at Brighton, not far from the Trenton military base where she worked under him.
But the pleading had no effect on him as he taped her mouth to cut off her breathing and let her die.
The court heard that the commander knew where she lived and that she was alone. A week before her death, he broke into Comeau’s house to steal her panties.
A week later, he again broke into her house and hid himself in her basement to wait for her to go to asleep. But the woman found him when she went to the basement to search for her cat.
As she shouted and called him a “bastard”, he bloodied her head with a flashlight and tied her up. Then he took to her bedroom to repeatedly rape and assault her and filmed his crime.
One video showed him smiling and kissing her cheek. Another showed her lying naked and unconscious on her stairway.
When she pleaded with him to “have a heart please”, the commander taped her mouth to choke her to death.
What was even more stunning was how he left the murder scene to drive straight to capital Ottawa to attend a meeting for buying a C-17 military transport plane for Canadian forces.
Equally horrific were the graphic details of the repeated rape and then death of 27-year-old Jessica Lloyd, who lived not far from the commander’s house.
The court heard how he first noticed her when she was exercising on a treadmill in the basement of her house. When she went to sleep, he broke into her house, tied her up, taped her mouth and repeatedly raped her before taking her to his cottage in Tweed (not far from Ottawa) where he repeatedly raped her.
When she began to suffer from seizures and pleaded him to take her to hospital, the commander continued to sexually assault her and videotape her ordeal.
On the tape, Lloyd was heard saying: “If I die, will you make sure to let my mom know that I love her?”
Before killing her, the commander gave her some fruit to eat, then hit her head with a flashlight and strangle her with a rope Jan 29.
A stunned courtroom heard how he left Lloyd’s body at his home to leave for the military base to attend his work.
He stayed overnight at the base before flying soldiers to California and returned to dump her body in a nearby field.
Canadian papers Tuesday carried photos of the commander posing in lingerie and his huge collections of stolen panties.
Since Canada has no death penalty, Williams faces life behind bars. He was arrested by chance in February when the tyre treads of his SUV matched those found at the one of the crime scenes.
(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at [email protected])