Emotional sentencing: mother of murdered children calls their death ‘appalling’

<p>CALGARY – The mother of two children murdered by their father says she still scans crowds looking for them.</p> <p>Ying Tang says the conviction of James Bing Louie will never bring her “innocent and beautiful children back.”</p> <p>”I have been struggling with pain, sadness and fear,” she said Wednesday in her victim impact statement at his sentencing hearing. “I find myself looking in crowds trying to find my children. No parent should ever experience this trauma.”</p> <p>She told the court she suffers every day from their “appalling and meaningless deaths.”</p> <p>Louie was convicted last month of the second-degree murder of the couple’s 13-year-old son Jason and nine-year-old daughter Jane. He was also found guilty of trying to murder Tang, his estranged wife.</p> <p>During the trial, Tang described finding the cold bodies of her dead children when she arrived at the family home and explained how Louie tried to strangle her with a rope.</p> <p>Tang, who had moved out as her marriage crumbled, called 911 on Nov. 27, 2009, to say she was worried because she couldn’t reach her children who were with their father at the family home.</p> <p>She was delayed in traffic and police didn’t go to check things out. By the time she got to the house, it was too late. Officers were dispatched when she called 911 again and managed a cry for help as she was being attacked.</p> <p>”It is barbaric to rob them of their lives and future,” she said softly.</p> <p>Crown prosecutor Bev Bauer is asking that Louie be given the mandatory life sentence with no chance at parole for 25 years – the maximum under law.</p> <p>She called the attacks callous and cowardly.</p> <p>”They were particularly vulnerable members of society,” said Bauer. “It was an utterly selfish act to prevent them from leaving him.</p> <p>She pointed to a “torrent of aggravating circumstances.” Bauer said Jason put up a struggle as he was strangled with a rope and his sister was smothered in her sleep.</p> <p>She rejected defence arguments that Louie was not criminally responsible because he was depressed about the breakup and taking drugs for insomnia.</p> <p>”He was depressed but at no time was he psychotic or delusional,” Bauer suggested. </p> <p>That prompted Judge Earl Wilson to comment that she was “being just a tad harsh” in her view.</p> <p>Defence lawyer Noel O’Brien said his client is genuinely remorseful and Louie should be eligible for parole in 14 or 15 years.</p> <p>”We’re not talking about when he gets parole. We’re taking about when he is allowed to apply,” he said.</p> <p>O’Brien said Louie was a loving and devoted father and the offences were out of character. “The element of mental evidence was a contributing factor,” he said.</p> <p>”He lives in a daily prison of his own. He faces despair and darkness on a daily basis.”</p> <p>Louie, 45, kept his head down throughout the hearing and offered a brief statement at the end.</p> <p>”This has happened. I have affected everybody. I don’t know how to put anything else into words,” he said through an interpreter.</p> <p>He then sat down and wiped away tears.</p> <p>Louie is to be sentenced May 17.</p>