Kenneth Courtorielle was found guilty of manslaughter Monday in the 2020 death of Billie Johnson, a mother of two, whose remains were found in a field north of Edmonton near Bon Accord, Alta.
Johnson disappeared on Dec. 24, 2020. Portions of her remains were found four months later.
The defence argued Courtorielle and Johnson did drugs together before she passed out with blood coming from her nose and mouth. The defence said Courtorielle panicked, and dropped her body in a field by some trees. The Crown argued that Johnson was punched in the face and that Courtorielle hid her body deep in the woods.
Outside the Edmonton Law Courts on Monday, Johnson’s mother Marless addressed Courtorielle.
“You saw her die, and I hope that every morning when you wake up, you see that. In the middle of the day, when you’re doing something, you see it. And at night before you go to bed and can’t sleep, it bothers you.
“If you try to shut it out or cover it out, let it be known that this mother’s madness is done,” she said.
Marless was in court for the entire legal proceedings so far.
“He tried to put my baby on trial. He said a lot of bad things about my baby. But it wasn’t my baby that was on trial; it was him. And he lied all over the place trying to cover his tracks and it didn’t work,” she said.
“I promised my daughter, I promised her from Day 1 that I was going to be here every day for her, and I was,” Marless said.
In Canada, there is no minimum sentence for manslaughter. The maximum sentence is imprisonment for life.
“I’m fine with that, as long as it comes with life because he took my daughter’s life, and he needs to pay,” Marless said. “I’m glad he’s going away so he won’t hurt anyone else.”
In his decision, Justice Steve Hillier said he considered “all the evidence adduced at trial, including the after-the-fact conduct.”
The justice said he’s “convinced, from the evidence, that Ms. Johnson died as a result of one or more blows to her face by the accused which broke her nose and damaged her crown tooth.
“As a result, blood from Ms. Johnson spattered on the headboard, the wall and most notably near the top of the poster above the bed in the apartment.
“The seriousness of the injury is further supported by blood located on the pillow, the pooling in the bedroom near the doorway and as found in the Dodge truck even after it was fully washed.
“Although there is no evidence of intent to cause serious bodily harm to Ms. Johnson, this unlawful act of applying force to her face without consent was objectively dangerous. I am satisfied that the unlawful assault caused or substantially contributed to Ms. Johnson’s death,” Hillier wrote.
He added that the accused “likely did not mean to cause Ms. Johnson’s death,” and that “some of the accused’s after-the-fact response conduct is consistent with having done something where the fatal consequence may well have been more serious than expected by him.
“However, I have no doubt that the force applied was intentional as required to sustain the manslaughter charge.”
In his testimony, Courtorielle said he and Johnson smoked a portion of some crack cocaine in the living room of his apartment. He said went into the bedroom with the rest of the drug, and after a while he went into the room and saw her with her head down with her chin to her chest. Courtorielle said she had blood coming out of her nose and mouth.
The defence told the court the blood splatter found on the pillow in the master bedroom could have been from an impact, or a cough.
Courtorielle testified he tried to shake her awake and slapped her, but Johnson didn’t stir. Courtorielle said he picked Johnson up from the bed and put her on the floor with plans to do CPR, but he didn’t.
In his closing arguments, defence lawyer Kent Teskey stressed Courtorielle was in a panic and his actions in light of that were reasonable.
Courtorielle said he picked Johnson up from the floor and put her in his truck with plans to take her to the hospital — but he didn’t. Instead, he drove for 45 minutes north of Edmonton and dumped her body in a treed area.
Courtorielle went home and cleaned the blood in his apartment. Teskey argued someone who is involved in an overdose death would clean up like this.
Teskey said there was not enough evidence to prove manslaughter beyond reasonable doubt.
Courtorielle pleaded guilty to offering indignity to a body, and not guilty to manslaughter.
Crown prosecutor Jim Stewart painted a different picture in his closing arguments.
Stewart argued Johnson was killed from a punch to the face which caused the nasal fracture — adding that would also explain blood splattered in the apartment.
Stewart said the accused is not a credible person. Stewart said the Courtorielle admitted under oath that he applied extremely manipulative techniques with police in order to deceive them — for example, crying on purpose.
Stewart said Courtorielle’s version of what happened to Johnson in the apartment does not account for blood splatters. Luminel testing found blood all over the apartment.
The Crown also said it didn’t make sense that Courtorielle remembered details about what kind of cleaning products he used — Pine-Sol and Lysol — and how he used a towel and dish cloth for some parts but couldn’t recall other events.
Stewart said it was also an illogical act when Courtorielle said he picked Johnson up from the bed and put her on the floor to do CPR, adding that moving her goes against the training he had for giving CPR.
Stewart said it was an incredibly callous act to take a human being that people care about all the way out of town and into the bush. He wondered about the reasoning for hiding a body that deep in the woods where nobody would find the remains to assess how she died.
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