The air force officer who has been charged with a number of murders?
Is a trial imminent?
He’s waived his right to a preliminary hearing, and the next court date is October 7, when a trial date will be set.
there’s also a civil action pending against him and his wife, brought by one of his alleged victims. I don’t know what the allegations in the civil action are, or how his wife is said to be involved. She’s not facing criminal charges. The action is at the very earliest stages, so not much has been made public about it.
The victim is seeking monetary compensation for emotional distress caused by the attack. Her home was invaded, she was bound, molested and photographed by Williams.
Williams signed his houses over in to his wife to try to financially protect her. I’m not sure of the correct terminology, but you get the picture.
He’s also being charged with something like 82 break and entries in the Ottawa area. What a nutjob.
The phrase you’re looking for is “fraudulent conveyance” (or sometimes, “fraudulent preference”). Williams signs over (“conveys”) his interest in these properties to his wife, in an effort to protect them from the plaintiff. In other words, the plaintiff cannot be awarded what Williams doesn’t own. But by naming Williams’ wife as a party to the suit, the plaintiff can continue to claim against the assets she now owns. How successful this claim against Williams’ wife will be, I don’t know.
A quick Google search shows a number of news sources stating that a publication ban on events in the civil trial was granted last May, so until that is lifted (and it doesn’t seem to have been, so I’ll assume it is still in place), we won’t know much about it.
Also, in other news, the American government was investigating Williams for the murder of two women in North Carolina, but they’ve recently decided he’s not involved.
I think the only thing that was banned was revealing the identity of the plaintiff’s name, and that the press is free to report on the case otherwise.
His lawyer recently advised the court that Williams will plead guilty on all charges; plea and sentencing is set for October 18.
They said yesterday that after this was taken care of they would start looking at where he was during some of the other murders that he has not yet been charged with. I know the father of one of the victims that they think he may have been responsible for.
The new details about videos and spreadsheets keeping track of his crimes give me a serious case of the willies. Someone please tell me we won’t be letting this guy back out.
I imagine the Crown will push for the same type of sentence that Bernardo got - the automatic life sentence without parole for 25 years for the two murders, plus dangerous offender sentence for the other ones. It’s very rare for anyone serving as a d.o. to ever make parole.
One plus I suppose: everyone is saved the trouble and cost of a trial.
Does Canada have the equivalent of jailing someone “At her majesty’s pleasure” ?
(Which sounds a lot kinkier than it is).
Yes: dangerous offender status.
However, that’s not particularly meaningful in the case of someone convicted of first degree murder. Dangerous offender status means that you get to be confined for an indeterminate period of time but not necessarily for the rest of your life; you can still be paroled. See dangerous offenders. In the case of first degree murder you can be (but are not necessarily) paroled after 25 years.
we used to - that was the form of warrant of committal for someone found not guilty by reason of insanity; it was then up to the mental health authorities to advise Her Majesty (as represented by the Minister of Justice in the Province) whether to release the individual.
It’s now been replaced by not criminally liable by reason of mental disorder, and there are regular review mechanisms set out in the relevant statute, so it’s no longer an “at pleasure” committal.
“Dangerous offender” status is a different thing - purely statutory, again with regular reviews, but it’s not at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
“Dangerous offender” status is not available for murder, because a person convicted of murder gets a life sentence - even if paroled, they’re under supervision, which is what the d.o. sentence provides for. I would say they’re functionally equivalent.
Wait, what? Videos and spreadsheets? I haven’t heard anything about that! Where did you hear about this?
Wow… that gives me the willies too. I hadn’t seen that info before.
Some interesting articles from Macleans Magazine
http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/cbc-article.aspx?cp-documentid=25868229