WETASKIWIN – A Court of Queen’s Bench justice will take the next month to decide whether there is a reasonable doubt about whether a 33-year-old mother knew what she was doing when she drowned her two young sons two years ago.
Allyson McConnell has pleaded not guilty to two charges of second-degree murder in the deaths of 10-month-old Jayden and 2-1/2-year-old Connor in 2010.
Justice Michelle Crighton can find McConnell guilty as charged of two counts of second-degree murder, or convict her on the lesser charge of manslaughter.
In his closing argument Thursday in a Wetaskiwin courtroom, defence lawyer Peter Royal urged Justice Michelle Crighton to convict McConnell of two counts of manslaughter, arguing the Crown has not proved Allyson McConnell had the required and specific intent to kill her children, which is the standard required for a conviction of murder.
He said the Crown must prove McConnell intended beyond a reasonable doubt to kill her children, and that in criminal law, “the tie goes to the accused.”
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But prosecutor Gordon Hatch said the Crown does not have to prove anything to an absolute certainty, and said any doubt in the case would be “imaginary.”
Hatch argued that there is not enough evidence before the court to show a lack of intent, and that the length of time it would have taken to drown the children shows it was “a prolonged, purposeful act.”
He described arguments about her lack of intent as “nothing but speculation and conjecture, upon which a reasonable doubt cannot be made.”
McConnell, 33, has admitted to drowning her sons, 10-month-old Jayden and 2-1/2-year-old Connor, in the bathtub of the family home in Millet.
The boys’ bodies were found by their father, Curtis McConnell, on Feb. 1, 2010, after he received a call from Edmonton police that his estranged wife had jumped off a city overpass.
A forensic psychiatrist who worked with McConnell for nearly two years testified earlier this week that she was severely depressed when she killed her children, and most likely did so as “an extension of her own suicide.”
Dr. Alberto Choy said he believes McConnell did have intent when she killed the children, but that said he can’t rule out other possibilities – including that McConnell consumed the drugs and alcohol and attempted suicide, then killed the children while in a delirious state.
Royal said that possibility is enough to constitute reasonable doubt.
Justice Crighton is set to render her decision April 20.
More to come…
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