CALGARY – Christopher Watcheston’s contention that his rape and murder of Arcelie Laoagan were separate events is beyond belief, a judge was told on Thursday.
"How likely is it that a woman who has just been raped and is half-naked, when extremely cold or freezing, would remain there and not dress herself if given the opportunity to leave, as the accused says?" Crown prosecutor Gord Wong said
in his final argument of Watcheston’s first degree murder trial.
"The conclusion is obvious. She is not able to do so. The irresistable conclusion is the murder is one transaction."
Wong said that with the connection of the sexual assault and kicking her in the head four times, the Crown has proven constructive first-degree murder for the deadly event that occurred on Jan. 17, 2008, on a dark path near the Franklin C-Train stop.
Laoagan made a phone call to a friend at 11:01 p.m., saying she was being raped. In a second call, at 11:09 p.m., she is only mumbling, suggesting she has already been attacked.
According to the Criminal Code, when one commits a domination offence such as sexual assault or unlawful confinement, then kills, it is first-degree murder.
Defence lawyer Alain Hepner conceded his client should be found guilty, but only of second degree murder, as there is a separation in time between the sex assault and slaying.
Hepner said his client never intended to kill Laoagan, 41 and a mother of five, and it was only after the sex assault that he heard her on the phone, likely to police, and he decided to kick her in the head so she would get a concussion and not remember what happened.
Watcheston admitted he kicked his victim another three times.
Hepner said there are too many questions not answered by the evidence.
"There are things we know, but things we don’t know. To make it one single transaction, (the evidence) falls short."
said Hepner.
"Because we don’t know what happened from 10:40 p.m. to when he catches up to her. There’s just not enough connection in time."
Watcheston, 24, told court he mistook Laoagan for his dead mother, who looked strikingly similar in appearance, and an argument ensued.
He said Laoagan, a mother of five, then told him not to rape her and offered to give him oral sex instead.
He said he was then in a dissociative state, "watching myself outside my body, looking down" (as he raped her), becaue of smoking the hallucinatory drug Salvia just before he got on the train. He said he did not know what drove him
to hit her repeatedly, but knew it was "wrong, big time wrong."
Wong said the accused’s story makes no sense at all.
"Why would Arcelie Laoagan’s immediate action to start yelling ‘don’t rape me,’ if he only called out his mother’s name to her by mistake?
"All he’s trying to do is explain and assuring her he won’t rape her. He wants the court to believe this happens as they are walking down a dark path behind Grace Baptist Church."
Wong said there are serious questions whether Watcheston even ingested any Salvia that night, or was intoxicated because of the beer he had consumed.
Wong pointed to surveillance video that shows he was in control of his actions.
Watcheston told court he was heavily intoxicated from drinking more than a dozen beer and the effect of the Salvia occurred just minutes before he and the victim got off the train at Franklin.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Kristine Eidsvik adjourned her verdict until April 13.
dslade@theherald.canwest.com
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