Faint hope hearing begins for Toronto woman serving life sentence for plotting boyfriend’s axe murder

Nicola Puddicombe sat quietly in the prisoner’s box inside a downtown Toronto courtroom as her lawyers argued she is a changed woman who has come to accept accountability for conspiring to kill her boyfriend Dennis Hoy 19 years ago.

In 2009, Puddicombe was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Hoy, after Crown prosecutors argued she and her ex-girlfriend Ashleigh Pechaluk orchestrated the murder so they could be together and cash in on Hoy’s quarter-million dollar life insurance policy.

Puddicombe is now the subject of a faint hope hearing in which a jury of her peers must decide whether she should be eligible for parole immediately, which would be six-and-a-half years before she is eligible to apply for parole in May 2032.

The faint hope clause of the Criminal Code of Canada allows offenders who receive life sentences to be able to apply for parole after 15 years. Offenders who committed their crime after Dec. 2, 2011 are no longer eligible to apply for the faint hope clause.

Pechaluk was acquitted six months before Puddicombe was convicted. Police failed to read Pechaluk her rights before they conducted an interview with her, so the evidence was ruled inadmissible. In that interview, Pechaluk confessed to the murder.

Pechaluk testified at Puddicombe’s trial telling the jury that while the two may have discussed killing Hoy, Puddicombe acted alone.

Defence lawyer Mitchell Huberman told the jury in his opening address Wednesday that at the time of the murder, Puddicombe found herself in two relationships. One was with the victim, Hoy and the other was with her former girlfriend, Pechaluk.

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“All three parties were aware of each other and a polygamous lifestyle,” said Huberman. “You will hear how Ms. Puddicombe felt trapped between two relationships when her boyfriend and her girlfriend grew to hate one another and became jealous of one another. Ms. Puddicombe found herself in between a rock and a hard place.”

Having witnessed some abuse in her family home growing up which normalized domestic violence for her and other life experiences, Huberman told the jury “it was against this backdrop that Ms. Puddicombe did the worst thing she has ever done in her life in October 2006.”

Huberman said Puddicombe’s decision to assist in the planned murder of Hoy, alongside her girlfriend Pechaluk, is a decision that still haunts her to this day.

Huberman told the jury that Puddicombe maintained her innocence for many years after her sentence due to feelings of shame, fear and guilt. Her lawyer said she has now come to accept accountability and admits that she is guilty of first-degree murder.

Assistant Crown prosecutor Alice Bradstreet told the jury in her opening address that Puddicombe, until two weeks ago, maintained her innocence.

“She stuck with the story that she was in the shower when Dennis was killed, and that she had nothing to do with the murder. And up until two weeks ago, before she would appear before the 12 of you, for the first time she told someone that she told Ashleigh to kill Dennis,” said Bradstreet.

Huberman told jurors that they would hear from Puddicombe herself saying she’s expected to talk about her life experiences that led to her getting involved in polygamy.

“She will tell you about her chaotic lifestyle that she was living leading up to the offence. She will detail her problematic thinking, her failure to regulate her emotions, her inability to identify an unhealthy relationship, her lack of tools to assert boundaries and her failure to ask for help from her supports,” said Huberman.

On the stand Thursday, correctional officer Shona Donovan testified that when she interviewed Puddicombe in March of this year, she still maintained her innocence, said she was in the shower at the time, and denied any involvement in the murder.

Donovan testified that Puddicombe told her that at the time, she was in a romantic relationship with a woman at the Grand Valley Institution for Women, saying the relationship had been going on for roughly two-and-a-half years.

Forensic psychologist Dr. Daniel Pillersdorf, who did a psychological risk assessment on Puddicombe in 2023, testified she was a low risk to reoffend. Pillersdorf said Puddicombe told her while involved in a love triangle, one of her partners was abusive, the other was obsessive and she was caught in the middle.

During cross-examination, Bradstreet asked Pillersdorf if he was aware that at trial, it was established that there were no signs that Hoy had ever abused her. Pillersdorf said he was not acknowledging it was self-reported.