KENTVILLE, N.S. – A Windsor, N.S. man has pleaded guilty to three murders he committed more than a decade ago.
Michael John Lawrence admitted killing Kirk Mersereau and his wife Nancy Christensen September 9, 2000, the day after he murdered Charles Maddison and stole his truck.
At Kentville provincial court Tuesday 37-year-old Lawrence admitted to the murders and expressed remorse, saying “If I could live my life over, I wouldn’t have done it.”
He pleaded guilty to all three first-degree murder charges and was sentenced to three life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years.
More than two dozen uniformed police officers were on hand at the courthouse as Lawrence was escorted in.
Police charged Lawrence in December 2011, months after Hells Angel member Jeff Lynds reportedly pointed investigators in his direction.
Mersereau was believed to have a connection to the biker gang. His brother Randy Mersereau – whose body was found in Truro in December 2010, 11 years after he disappeared – was a founding member of the gang’s Halifax chapter.
Maddison’s death was a case of being kind to the wrong person.
In agreed statement of facts read to the court, Lawrence said Maddison picked him up September 8.
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Lawrence needed a car to commit a robbery in Halifax’s Bayers Lake Business Park. Maddison was bound for the city to go to a doctor’s appointment.
Once inside the vehicle, Lawrence pulled out his handgun and ordered Maddison to drive to a secluded area in Hants County. He shot the 55-year-old Portapique man twice. He died almost immediately.
Maddison’s 89-year-old mother , Etta, said in a victim impact statement she knew something had happened to her son as soon as she learned he was missing.
“He was a good son, who stayed with me for six months after my husband died,” her statement read.
Hells Angels hit
Lawrence left in the man’s truck and headed toward Halifax, but later turned back to dispose of the body. To this day, his remains have not been found. His burned out pick-up truck was found two days later in East Hants.
Police found the pick-up truck burned out on a deserted stretch of road the same day they discovered the bodies of Mersereau and Christensen in their Centre Burlington home, 40 kilometres away.
Investigators linked the two incidents almost immediately.
Lawrence says he planned to commit the Bayers Lake robbery the day after he killed Maddison, September 9, but instead he took part in a Hells Angels-ordered hits on Mersereau and Christensen.
The agreed statement of facts states an accomplice shot the pair first, inside their farmhouse, followed by Lawrence shooting them with the same gun Lawrence used to kill Maddison. The couple’s infant son was left alive alone in his crib.
Two other have been charged in the Mersereau-Christensen homicides: Curtis Blair Lynds and Leslie Douglas Greenwood were charged with first degree murder in December 2010.
Greenwood was also charged in 2010 with being an accessory after the fact in the murder of Randy Mersereau. He was also charged with a previous attempt on Randy Mersereau’s life – car dealership bombing in Bible Hill, N.S. a few weeks before his Halloween 1999 disappearance.
Faith and forgiveness
Lawrence’s lawyer told the court his client has suffered from a number of medical conditions and is in remission from cancer of the sinuses, nasal area and base of his brain.
When he was diagnosed three years ago, he turned to the Bible and later told his parents about his crimes.
Following his arrest last year, Cindy and John Lawrence talk to their son about confessing.
Outside the courtroom Tuesday, Cindy Lawrence said she hope everyone involved can “find peace and move on.”
“Our hearts pour out to the families of all the victims. The Maddison family, the Merseareau family, the Christensen family. This was a terrible thing,” she said.
“Mike has taken full responsibility for what he’s done, he’s plead guilty to it and willing to accept the consequences.”
*With files from Natasha Pace, Global Maritimes and The Canadian Press
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