A Windsor man is set to be retried for a ‘frenzied attack’ on his girlfriend.
Lesley Watterworth, 42, was stabbed to death on Nov. 1, 2016, by her boyfriend, John Pierre.
Pierre, 49 in 2018, was convicted of second-degree murder by a jury in September.
He was sentenced to life in prison where he would have to serve 15 years before applying for parole.
However, this past May, lawyers for Pierre argued for an appeal of the conviction.
The appellate lawyers argued the trial judge didn’t properly instruct the jury on how to consider Pierre’s actions after the murder.
The Court of Appeal for Ontario (COA) agreed.
According to the COA, the only “live issue” at trial was whether Pierre had intentionally caused her death.
Watterworth was stabbed 69 times; the COA referred to it as a “frenzied attack” with a kitchen knife.
Pierre testified the couple had been consuming alcohol and illegal drugs and they hadn’t slept for three days at the time of the attack.
His lawyer – Ken Marley – did not argue intoxication as a defence.
He argued Pierre suffered from various mental health illnesses which resulted in “problems with impulse control, purposeful action, problem-solving and aggression”, according to the COA.
Marley pointed to various actions after the murder as signs of a person who had “disordered thinking” at the time of the stabbing.
In the hours after the murder, Pierre didn’t call for help, put a business suit over his blood-soaked overalls, failed to clean his hands, went to a restaurant, the Beer Store and the casino without any money.
All, the defence said, pointed to someone who wasn’t thinking clearly from intoxication combined with mental health issues.
The Crown, on the other hand, argued “his actions and his inaction in the moments following Lesley’s death are consistent with a rational mindset and were carried out with the purpose of concealing a crime.”
The Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled on Aug. 12 that Justice Renee Pomerance erred in her instruction to the jury about the “after the fact” conduct, “... and therefore it was left unequipped with an accurate understanding of the law and the evidence.”
The COA ruled the judge “... did not specifically caution them against the risk of giving undue weight to the consciousness of guilt inference or advise them that such evidence has only an indirect bearing on guilt ...”
Pierre’s lawyers seemed particularly troubled by this part of Justice Pomerance’s charge to the jury:
“Consider what, if anything, these actions tell you about his intention at the time of the kill. Are these actions the product of a callous disregard for the fact that he had just killed someone, or are these actions the product of what he called a state of shock? Were his actions those of someone who had carried out his intentions and was now moving on to other things, or were his actions the product of what he called a state of shock?”
They argued, and the COA agreed, “given its wording” that portion of the charge “can reasonably be taken as an invitation to use post-offence acts of callous disregard as affirmative evidence that Mr. Pierre was acting consistently with having committed a murder.”
Crown Attorney Eric Costaris was one of two prosecutors on the case back in 2018. Here is his statement to CTV News, reacting to the successful appeal.
“As R. v. Pierre remains an active matter before the Superior Court of Justice, it would be inappropriate for me to offer any comment or statement at this time.”
The Court of Appeal for Ontario has now ordered the conviction be set aside and a new trial scheduled.
Defence lawyer Ken Marley was not involved in the appeal argument, and he does not know why it took so long to be argued.
“I do, however, agree with the Court of Appeal’s reasoning as to why a new trial is necessary,” Marley said.
He has not been approached by Pierre to represent him in the new trial.
A member of the Watterworth family has declined to comment.