Williams sentencing
Posted Oct 20, 2010 04:45:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The trial of Colonel Russell Williams enters the sentencing stage today in a Belleville, Ontario, courtroom.
Prosecutors are expected to enter into evidence a police video of Williams, in which he admitted to sexually assaulting four women and killing two.
He also confessed to 82 break and enters where he stole female underwear and took pornographic pictures of himself wearing his trophies.
The former commander of Canada’s largest military airfield was convicted yesterday of first-degree murder in the deaths of Jessica Lloyd and Corporal Marie-France Comeau.
The conviction following two days of graphic evidence, including descriptions of how Williams photographed and videotaped himself raping both women.
Both women — who were bound, beaten and raped repeatedly — pleaded for their lives just before he killed them.
He’s facing a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
Some experts are asking if it was necessary for the Crown to release pornographic photos and shocking details of Williams’ crimes.
Gruesome details of the final hours in the life of Williams’ murder victims are being tweeted and live-blogged from the courtroom each day.
Those experts say intimate, depraved information about the sex murders committed by Paul Bernardo and Robert Pickton were not made so public.
In Bernardo’s case, while videos of the murders were played for the court and families, the media was limited to hearing the audio only.
Queen’s University law professor Don Stuart says releasing the graphic photos in Williams’ case won’t change the outcome as his life sentence is fixed.
