How Weird Is This?

[Lord Jim]

Top Canadian commander pleads guilty to murders

By CHARMAINE NORONHA, Associated Press Writer Charmaine Noronha, Associated Press Writer – 52 mins ago

BELLEVILLE, Ontario – A commander who was a rising star in Canada's military pleaded guilty Monday to the murders of two women, the sexual assaults of two others and dozens of breaking and entering charges in which he stole panties from the bedrooms of girls as young as 11.

Col. Russell Williams, who once flew prime ministers and served as a pilot to Queen Elizabeth II during a visit, was the commander of Canada's largest Air Force base until he was charged earlier this year.

He pleaded guilty Monday to two first-degree murder charges, two sexual assaults and 82 breaking and entering charges in a Belleville, Ontario court. The 47-year-old faces an automatic sentence of life in prison with no possibility for parole for at least 25 years.[not enough in my view]

Williams was expressionless and dressed in a somber dark suit, and he kept his head down as the charges were read. The list of charges was so long that it took nearly 40 minutes to read it into the record.

"Guilty, your honor," he said after the charges were entered.

Prosecutors said Williams targeted girls and women in their teens and 20s and often photographed himself in their underwear.

At the sentencing hearing following his guilty plea, prosecutors showed photographs of Williams wearing a 12-year-old girl's cartoon-decorated underwear, with his genitalia protruding from them, while he was lying on her bed. Other photos showed him wearing underwear belonging to 11-year-old twins. In some of the pictures he was masturbating. People in the courtroom, many of them victims and their families, were in tears and appeared stunned.

Authorities said he carefully catalogued the photos of himself in the victims' underwear with time and date stamps on hard drives in his Ottawa home. Some of the photos were panoramic shots of the victims' bedrooms. He would take the lingerie with him, keeping them in bags and boxes in his home and would sometimes burn them if he ran out of space.

Prosecutors also said Williams videotaped the assaults and murders.

Williams, who was born in England and raised in Canada, had a promising future with the military. He was pictured with the British queen and her husband, Prince Philip, on the front page of the newspaper of Canadian Forces Base Trenton during their 2005 visit. He was photographed in January with Defense Minister Peter MacKay and Canada's top general during an inspection of a Canadian aircraft on its way to support relief efforts in Haiti.

He is alleged to have killed his second victim just over a week after he appeared with MacKay.

He pleaded guilty to the murder of Jessica Lloyd, 27, whose body was found in February, and Marie Comeau, a 38-year-old corporal under his command who was found dead in her home last November. Both women were asphyxiated.

Williams also pleaded guilty to forcible confinement, breaking and entering and sexual assault after two other women were attacked during separate home invasions in the Tweed, Ontario area in September 2009.

Williams, a 23-year military veteran, has never been in combat but has been stationed across Canada and internationally, including a stint in 2006 as the commanding officer for Camp Mirage, the secretive Canadian Forces base widely reported to be near Dubai. Investigators looked into other areas where he has been posted.

Williams' wife, Mary-Elizabeth Harriman, works as the associate executive director at the Heart and Stroke Foundation in Ottawa.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101018/ap_ ... r_slayings

It seems to me that the high functioning sociopath, (of which this guy is an extreme example) is more the rule than the exception....

John Wayne Gacy was married, a successful contractor, and very active in local politics and charities....

The " BTK" ("Bind Torture Kill") killer in Witchita had a good job, raised a family, was an elder in his church....

Even Ted Bundy was a very sociable and out going person....

It seems to me the David Berkowitz, Geoffrey Dahmer stereotype of the psychotic killer...

The social misfit loner....

Is not a particularly useful profile for the cops to use when they're trying to track down a serial killer...

[oldr_n_wsr]

Sick, sick, sick.

[Gob]

At the sentencing hearing following his guilty plea, prosecutors showed photographs of Williams wearing a 12-year-old girl's cartoon-decorated underwear, with his genitalia protruding from them, while he was lying on her bed. Other photos showed him wearing underwear belonging to 11-year-old twins. In some of the pictures he was masturbating. People in the courtroom, many of them victims and their families, were in tears and appeared stunned.

You have to wonder what road was traveled, to get to the point where that became such an intense obsession. Things like that don't happen overnight, no one wakes up one day thinking; "it would be really hot to steal some children's underwear and photograph myself wanking off in them."

[dales]

Indeed.

[loCAtek]

How Weird Is This?

Not so weird at all, they only want power after all, and will selfishly take it no matter the cost to others. Unfortunately, the more they get the more they want.

I was involved in a case while I was in the Navy, as the roommate of a woman who was targeted by a Petty Officer with this type of warped psyche. He was the 'Master-at-Arms' at the Enlisted Quarters, and liked to abuse his power by using his keys to enter rooms. He didn't rape (yet) but liked to corner a lady and expose himself, so she feared he would. He tried to say, the woman (my roommate) who was pressing charges had been drinking, so couldn't properly identify who it was who had entered her locked room.
He could have gotten away with it too, with his sterling reputation, except that when word started getting out- more women starting coming forward; saying, 'I can believe it, it happened to ME!'
A total of five female sailors went to court against him, and I testified that my roommate didn't drink; she was a teetotaler.

After: he was stripped of all rank and went to prison.

You have to stop this kind of behavior as soon as possible, before it escalates.

[Gob]

[Lord Jim]

Aw geez Strop....

I could have gone all day without that....

[Miles]

Two counts of first degree murder and he gets 20 to life. Not to mention the numerous other complaints. Well I guess if you want to experience the feeling of killing someone just because you can Canada is the place to be.

[Big RR]

Yep, what a shame they don't have the death penalty, it would have deterred him from these killings.

[Lord Jim]

Yep, what a shame they don't have the death penalty, it would have deterred him from these killings.

Perhaps not, but it certainly would have represented a more equitable and just punishment for his crimes.

[Big RR]

well, as the Mikado sang:

A more humane Mikado never
Did in Japan exist,
To nobody second,
I'm certainly reckoned
A true philanthropist.
It is my very humane endeavour
To make, to some extent,
Each evil liver
A running river
Of harmless merriment.

My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!

All prosy dull society sinners,
Who chatter and bleat and bore,
Are sent to hear sermons
From mystical Germans
Who preach from ten till four.
The amateur tenor, whose vocal villainies
All desire to shirk,
Shall, during off-hours,
Exhibit his powers
To Madame Tussaud's waxwork.

The lady who dyes a chemical yellow
Or stains her grey hair puce,
Or pinches her figure,
Is painted with vigour
And permanent walnut juice.
The idiot who, in railway carriages,
Scribbles on window-panes,
We only suffer
To ride on a buffer
In Parliamentary trains.

My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!

Chorus:
His object all sublime
He will achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!

Mikado:
The advertising quack who wearies
With tales of countless cures,
His teeth, I've enacted,
Shall all be extracted
By terrified amateurs.
The music-hall singer attends a series
Of masses and fugues and "ops"
By Bach, interwoven
With Spohr and Beethoven,
At classical Monday Pops.

The billiard sharp who any one catches,
His doom's extremely hard —
He's made to dwell —
In a dungeon cell
On a spot that's always barred.
And there he plays extravagant matches
In fitless finger-stalls
On a cloth untrue
With a twisted cue
And elliptical billiard balls!

My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!

Chorus:
His object all sublime
He will achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!

[Scooter]

Two counts of first degree murder and he gets 20 to life.

It's actually life with the possibility of parole after 25 years. The fact is, though, that the number of first-degree murderers that get parole is infiniessimal. But the door is not closed on the possibility that someone who committed murder at the age of 16, was tried and convicted as an adult, and serves 65 years in prison, might at the age of 81 be considered to be rehabilitated and to no longer pose any risk to society if he is released. That very faint hope of parole might just be why we have not seen the need to construct supermax and similar facilities as you have done, in order to prevent lifers with nothing to lose from killing other inmates with impunity.

Not to mention the numerous other complaints. Well I guess if you want to experience the feeling of killing someone just because you can Canada is the place to be.

Which is why we have a murder rate, what, about a tenth the size of yours?

You incarcerate far too many people for far longer than we do, and it has does absolute jackshit to bring your crime rate down, so you're not in a position to be lecturing anyone on their sentencing practices or philosophy of correction.

[Crackpot]

From the guy who owns the Diner I frequent in St. Ignace upon seeing pictures of this guy in girls underwear on the news:

Ugh! at least he could have shaved his chest first!

[Andrew D]

In the U.S., he might well have not received the death penalty either. Fifteen States and the District of Columbia do not have the death penalty. Even had he committed his crimes in one of the thirty-five States with the death penalty, he might well not have received it: He pleaded guilty, and it is common for prosecutors to trade away the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea and a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. (And Alaska has neither the death penalty nor the sentence of life without the possibility of parole.)

On the other hand, he might have been an unlikely candidate for a plea bargain:

Prosecutors also said Williams videotaped the assaults and murders.

If he did videotape the murders, and if those videotapes would have been admissible in whatever jurisdiction he were tried in, then the prosecutors would be far less likely to enter into a plea bargain which would avoid the death penalty.

The U.S. military has both the death penalty and the sentence of life without the possibility of parole, so if he were subject to the military's criminal jurisdiction, he could have received either penalty. Under the US Code (i.e., federal crimes not subject to military jurisdiction), the death penalty is available, but parole has been abolished. Therefore, a life sentence for a federal crime, at least if it is imposed by a federal court, is necessarily a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

[Miles]

Which is why we have a murder rate, what, about a tenth the size of yours?

Which also is representative of the difference in population rates, eh?

[Big RR]

Well, maybe not a tenth, but the following link http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_m ... per-capita shows the murder rates per 1000 inhabitants and shows Canada's murder rate (0.0149) is lightly more than a third of the US rate (0.0428).

[Lord Jim]

Of course the vast difference in the population density alone could easily account for that....

[@meric@nwom@n]

I am not a math wiz but given Canada's rather small population I find the murder rate staggering.

[Crackpot]

They don't call it cabin Fever for nothing

[Big RR]

If I recall correctly, the vas majority of Candians live in 3 provinces--Ontario, Quebec, and BC, and most live in major metro areas in those provinces. Not sure how this compares to US population density, but I imagine many Canadians live in areas nearly as densely populated as in the US.