The man accused of manslaughter in the death of a 30-year-old mother of two took the stand in his own defence over two days of the trial.
Kenneth Courtorielle, 37, has pleaded guilty to offering indignity to a body, and has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter in the death of Billie Johnson.
On Monday, the Defence lawyer Kent Teskey called Courtorielle to the stand, where he talked about their relationship and said he was dishonest with police in the weeks following Johnson’s death.
Dec. 24, 2020 was the last time Johnson, 30, was last heard from. She was last seen near 113 Street and 107 Avenue in central Edmonton.
Courtorielle said they were hanging out earlier in the day before he dropped Johnson off across the street from the home of her mother, Marless Johnson, while he went to see his own family.
Court heard from witnesses earlier in the trial that Johnson was drinking that night but did not appear or sound drunk. When she got to her mom’s place, she had some drinks there.
Her long time friend Jennifer Cappo testified she met up with Johnson there. Johnson and Marless had an argument, and Johnson left in a cab to her boyfriend’s place, who Cappo said was Courtorielle.
Court heard Courtorielle went to Enoch Cree Nation, just west of Edmonton, to meet up with family and go skating on that Christmas Eve.
In his testimony Monday, Courtorielle told the court he was in an on-and-off again loving relationship with Johnson. He said the pair talked lots on the phone and Johnson would often come to spend the night.
He said Johnson called him around 8:30 p.m. while he was skating, and asked to come and stay over. He said it was fine as long as she wasn’t drinking.
Courtorielle was on parole at that time and wasn’t supposed to be around alcohol or drugs. He also had to report when he was in an intimate relationship, which he didn’t.
He said they had no arguments that day, just disagreements.
Both Courtorielle’s aunt and uncle, LeAnne Ward and Mark Blue, testified they heard Courtorielle take a call and it sounded like a woman was on the phone.
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They said Courtorielle appeared to get upset and said, “you know how I feel about drinking.” Courtorielle then left.
On Tuesday, his testimony got into what happened once he got home from skating in Enoch.
When Courtorielle got back to the apartment at 9:15 p.m., he said Johnson showed up soon after. He was trying to set up his phone to play a TV show.
Courtorielle said he and Johnson talked about getting “something” to smoke. Johnson left for a short while and Courtorielle said she came back with a brown paper bag containing crack cocaine.
He said they used tin foil to smoke it in the living room. He said Johnson asked him if he wanted more and he said no.
Courtorielle said Johnson took what was left in the bedroom.
He said he watched a full episode and a half of a show and went into the bedroom.
Courtorielle said he saw Johnson on the bed, leaning against the headboard with her chin to her chest.
He testified he tried to wake her up by shaking her, and slapping her.
Johnson didn’t stir.
The defence asked Courtorielle, “Did you have any involvement in the death of Billie Johnson?”
“No I did not,” Courtorielle said.
Courtorielle told the court he took her from the bed and put her on the floor, with plans to do CPR — but he didn’t.
He instead sat beside her for a while. He said he saw blood coming for her nose and her mouth.
After sometime he said he called his uncle, while still sitting beside Johnson.
After the call, Courtorielle said he picked Johnson up by putting her arm over his shoulder. He took her from his second storey apartment to his truck, and put her in the passenger side.
Courtorielle said he had plans to take her to the hospital — but didn’t.
Instead, he drove north of Edmonton towards Bon Accord.
He said he stopped at a remote area where he could see mailboxes and sat there for a while. He then drove further, and said he saw trees and decided to dump Johnson’s body.
Courtorielle became emotional as he talked about take Johnson’s body from the truck and into the treed area.
Courtorielle told court at that time he didn’t know if she was alive or dead, but said she felt cold and clammy. She wasn’t breathing.
Crown Prosecutor James Stewart asked Courtorielle if he always had his phone on him, and he said yes. The night she died, Courtorielle didn’t bring his phone with him when he was dumping Johnson’s body.
Courtorielle did have Johnson’s two phones with him. When asked by the Crown how the phones ended up with him, Courtorielle said he didn’t know.
Courtorielle said the crack he smoked earlier disabled his thinking.
Courtorielle said he returned to his apartment, and cleaned up the blood on the floor. He said he used a towel. He also used Pine-Sol and a mop, and a Lysol cleaning product.
He called his uncle again, and decided to go back to his house on Enoch Cree Nation, and arrived around 1:30 a.m. on Christmas Day.
Const. Nadine Comeau with Edmonton Police Service’s identification unit did luminal testing in Courtorielle’s apartment.
Comeau testified there was blood found in the master bedroom on the wall about the head board, and on the mattress.
She said the room was darkened and there was glowing from the luminal testing on the walls and the floor.
She said blood was found in primary bedroom, bathroom, hallway and on a mop. She said wipe marks were on the walls.
“(It) gave me kind of an emotional reaction to see how much it glowed, it was something that quite obvious,” Comeau told court.
Friends, family and community members searched for Johnson’s remains almost every weekend in February, March and April.
The initial search was focused on the outskirts of the city and on the Enoch Cree First Nation.
In February of that year, police arrested Courtorielle in St. Albert and charged him with second-degree murder. The charges were then downgraded to manslaughter.
Johnson’s body was eventually found four months later, on private farmland several kilometres northwest of Bon Accord, on April 21, 2021.
Her mother Marless has been watching the court proceedings from another courtroom, saying it has been comforting to be able to listen in and process the testimony without affecting the proceedings.
“I can let out how I feel without having to disrupt the court. It hurts to hear the stuff that he said. It hurts to hear what’s coming out of his mouth,” she told Global News outside the Edmonton courthouse on Tuesday.
Johnson doesn’t believe Courtorielle was honest in his testimony.
“He contradicted himself quite a bit,” she alleged. “When someone’s telling the truth, it just roll out of your mouth. You don’t have to go back and think about it, you know?”
“If he claimed to love my child the way he loved my child, he would have gave the love to see that she was okay — she would be still here if that was the case. But that’s not the case in this scenario.”
Johnson said losing her daughter has “completely restructured” a lot of lives.
“Nobody is the same. Especially her children you know, like her son,” she said, explaining her daughter was a mother to two children: a son who is now 13 and a daughter who is six.
“My grandson and my granddaughter are the true victims here, because he left them without a mother.
“She’s not here to guide her children — and her children are at a very young and delicate age where they need their mother’s guidance.”
The trial, being heard by Court of King’s Bench Justice Steve Hillier, is scheduled to wrap up with closing arguments on Thursday.
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