january 23rd, 2007 › briscoe-laboucan trial › nina courtepatte › deadmonton 2005 › deadmonton › edmonton

WARNING

Nina Louise Courtepatte, 13, died from blunt force trauma on April 3rd, 2005.

Charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault were Michael Erin Briscoe, now 36, Joseph Wesley Laboucan, now 21, and three teens not identified by provision of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

<< january 22nd, 2007 | briscoe-laboucan trial | january 24th, 2007 >>

April 4th, 2005 had started off as a sunny day. Mike Kachuk, one-time owner of the Edmonton Springs Golf Course, was up early and spring was just around the corner. He was eager to get the fairways in shape for the season.

Kachuk spent the day riding on his golf cart around the property, watching over his employees as they washed the greens. While checking the fourth fairway at about 2:40 in the afternoon, he spotted something unusual.

April 2005. Kachuk shows CTV Edmonton's David Ewasuk where he found Nina's body (for more, see the Ewasuk watch).

January 2007. Kachuk shows CTV Edmonton his willingness to appear on camera again.

Kachuk rolled up within twenty yards of what he thought was some loose debris lying near the 100-yard marker.

“I figured it was a wrap that covered lumber and got blown off a truck,” Kachuk the court on the second day of the Briscoe-Laboucan trial.

The busy Yellowhead Highway, favoured by truckers, was just south of the golf course.

Kachuk noticed patches of grass stained red with blood.

“I took a closer look. Then I headed for the clubhouse and phoned police.”

"I found the body," he stated in court.

Pausing to sip water and regain his composure, the events of the day still visibly haunting the 75-year-old man, Kachuk told how finding Nina Courtepatte's body affected him.

“I kind of blacked out,” said Kachuk. “You’d have to experience it to see what happens.”

The man was asked if the body male or female.

“I couldn't tell. I kind of blanked out at that time,” said Kachuk.

While calling police, he had to hand the phone to his daughter.

“When the police asked the address, I couldn’t remember it.”

Kachuk choked back tears while on the stand. He later explained outside court he had a granddaughter about the same age as Nina.

For Mike Kachuk, the memory of that day in April 2005 remains forever clouded with the horror of discovering the battered body of a teen that could have been his own flesh and blood.

The Crown then introduced as its next witness Jarvis Nelson, a friend of Joseph Laboucan.

In the small town of Fort St. John, British Columbia the two often ran into each other at bars and parties.

Nelson told the court he and Laboucan knew each other well enough to talk at length "about cars, women, beers – typical Fort. St. John stuff."

He testified Laboucan worked for a transport company in Fort. St. John when he broke his back, and had travelled to Edmonton to pick up a cash settlement in relation to the accident.

At one time, he wore a body brace but no longer wore it by the time he got to Alberta.

Nelson was at home on April 5th, 2005 when he heard his roomate, Nicole Holzer, "very upset and in tears" after she had hung up the phone after a call. She told Jarvis she had just finished speaking to Joseph Laboucan.

"She was all freaked out," Nelson later said outside court. He called Laboucan back to find out what had happened during the call.

“[Laboucan] said he’d been out at a party and seen a bunch of guys kill this girl. He said she was hit in the head with a wrench of some kind.”

Laboucan did not give Nelson any names or a location.

Nelson recalled Laboucan specifically said some guys had "clocked her upside the head with a crescent wrench," and that Laboucan didn't intervene because he was "outnumbered."

He and Nicole drove to Edmonton and met Laboucan at West Edmonton Mall, ironically the same location where Laboucan was said to have first spotted Nina Courtepatte.

Nelson said Laboucan was "agitated" in "the way he was talking and fiddling with stuff." Laboucan basically gave the same information when describing what had happened.

While at the mall, Laboucan introduced his B.C. buddies to a few of his friends. Nelson couldn't remember their names, but described them as "sketchy" and "weird."

"I told him to go to the cops," said Nelson. Nicole later called her aunt, an RCMP officer. The couple were then contacted by Fort St. John RCMP.

Nelson also said Laboucan used to have long hair and a scruffy beard. With a nod to the prisoner's box where Laboucan sat now clean-shaven with a short haircut, Nelson observed: "He cleaned up though."

As Nelson testified, Laboucan looked at him with narrowed eyes and stared at him until he left court.

Later speaking to CTV Edmonton cameras, the B.C. man was asked about his testimony.

"[Laboucan] told me he had witnessed an act of violence – somebody, a bunch of guys, hit some girl over the head with a wrench."

Nelson told CTV he drove from Fort St. John to Edmonton to meet with Laboucan, but the man accused in the teen's death didn't have much to say to his friend.

"I didn't get anymore details or anything, no."

Reading about Nina Courtepatte's murder in the papers, Nelson knew his old drinking buddy was in serious trouble.

The trial continued January 24th, 2007

A list of persons named in this case can be found at the bottom of the main Briscoe-Laboucan trial page.

deadmonton 2005 - nina courtepatte - briscoe-laboucan trial - january 23rd, 2007