march 7th, 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.

One male teen, aged 19 and nicknamed "Pyro", pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in youth court in Stony Plain on December 8th, 2006. He was to be sentenced as an adult in April 2007.

Briscoe's girlfriend, now 19 and named "Cindy" in this narrative, went to trial March 12th, 2007. Pyro's girlfriend, now 17 and nicknamed "Buffy", had a trial date set for May 1st, 2007.

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Using words like "fall guy" and "marked man," Joseph Laboucan's defence lawyer Laurie Wood presented her closing arguments before Court of Queen's Bench Justice Brian Burrows.

Wood told Burrows of a theory, much of it speculation she admitted, with enough merit to create a real and substantial doubt of her client's culpability in the death of Nina Courtepatte.

She said a gang of self-described mall rats, who dabbled in the occult, had conspired to frame Joseph Laboucan to save their own skins.

"Not one of these people is credible or believable," Wood described those who tesfified against her client in the trial.

"All had lied and admitted that they had lied and were liars."

Woods also said Laboucan was not clever enough to mastermind a plan to kill Nina and he was certainly not smart enough to manipulate a gang of hardened street kids to carry out such a plan.

"I respectfully submit that he is a follower and not a leader as the other witnesses would have us believe."

"He is very simple in fact, and not this clever master mind the other witnesses paint for us," Wood told Justice Burrows.

She further argued the 21-year-old Laboucan had a life of promise ahead of him and wouldn't have had any interest in planning or executing the brutal slaying.

Wood told the court Laboucan had left his street life in Edmonton for a steady job in Fort St. John, British Columbia. It was there he participated in church groups.

He only came back to Edmonton to pick up an insurance settlement cheque, she said, and only bad luck brought him back in contact with some of his old street crowd.

Wood maintained that when Laboucan returned to the city, plans were already in place to kill Nina. She said his presence was simply sheer luck that allowed the mall rats to implicate him.

Like Nina, Laboucan was an outsider in the group, she said.

He was off drugs for a year, had abandoned his old life and friends, and was then thought to have held off on sharing his wealth coming from the large insurance settlement he made the mistake of boasting about.

“He was his own worst enemy.”

"They got together and decided what they would say if caught and that they would blame it all on Joseph Laboucan. He would be the fall guy because he broke the mall rat code," Wood said.

"Perhaps the mall rats had a similar code as the Mafia that a person could never be allowed to leave that lifestyle without serious consequences."

Wood said Nina was a pretty, funny, smart and popular girl, who looked older than her age, had recently won a modelling contract, and was looking to break free from her mall rat lifestyle at West Edmonton Mall.

Her friend Jane, then aged 15, used Nina to attract boys and to make herself more popular, the defence lawyer said.

It's possible that Jane was jealous of Nina's good looks and popularity, Wood said.

Jane admitted in testimony that she had been mad at Nina over a boyfriend issue. It was also clear that Briscoe's girlfriend Cindy didn't like Nina because of some past incident, also perhaps involving a boyfriend.

"We have all heard the saying that there is no wrath like a woman's scorn," said Wood.

"It is both Joseph Laboucan and Nina Courtepatte who stand out as being different."

One week before Nina's death, Jane, Buffy and Pyro got together to burn Bibles. Buffy had testified she prayed to the devil and drank blood.

On the day of the murder, Cindy told Nina and Jane to come to a bush party. She told them they would be safe there and that she would protect them, Wood said.

“Cindy was the leader and instigator and knew what was about to happen to Nina.”

Wood said it was Cindy who "conjured up this whole plan to kill Nina."

It could be that Cindy wanted Laboucan to be present at the murder so that he would be tied to the other mall rats by guilt, and could be blackmailed or cajoled into spending his insurance claim money on the remaining mall rats, Wood said.

All who were out at the golf course agreed that the mood in the car was happy on the way out there. They agreed that Laboucan was engaged in a serious make-out session with Nina, Jane and Buffy in the back of Briscoe's Ford Tempo.

And Nina may have had a motive for making out with Laboucan, Wood said.

“He would soon be able to afford to spoil her and spend his money on her but by flirting with Joseph Laboucan, Nina Courtepatte had no idea how much danger she was creating for herself.”

It certainly doesn't make sense that Laboucan would suddenly go from amorous interest in Nina to brutally raping her and beating her to death with a sledgehammer, Wood argued.

In the front seat of the Tempo, Cindy – Laboucan's former girlfriend – sat, looking back now and then at Joseph and Nina making out. She thought about Nina soon enjoying the benefits of Laboucan's insurance claim, Wood suggested.

“Jane started to seethe with anger and jealousy towards Nina Courtepatte who was stealing her old boyfriend. There are many women who move on to new boyfriends or husbands but do not relinquish their claim to the old lovers or boyfriends," Wood claimed.

“At the golf course, Briscoe's girlfriend struck the first blow against Nina, hitting her with a wrench and telling her, 'You're really pissing me off!' ”

It was then Buffy let her boyfriend, Pyro, in on the plan to kill Nina. She knew “he was crazy enough to go along with it once it started,” Wood said.

Pyro testified he did not know about the murder plan until that point. Wood suggested that Laboucan, like Nina and Pyro until then, believed that they were all simply heading out to a bush party.

Pyro bargained with Nina, telling her if she had sex with him, he would let her live. Pyro then raped Nina in front of his own fiance, Buffy. This angered Buffy and led to her participating in Nina's murder by knifing her and holding her down so Pyro could hit her with the sledgehammer, Wood said.

Laboucan testified that he froze when the attack on Nina started. This fit in with his past history as a young boy when he stood quiet and still while witnessing his father and step-father physically abuse his mother. He would later deny anything bad had happened, Wood said.

After the killing, a worried Laboucan called his friends in Fort St. John and told them he had witnessed a murder.

Wood said it was much more likely an innocent man than a guilty man would make such a call and such an admission. A real murderer would only have been thinking about getting away with the crime and telling no one anything about it.

The mall rats were already suspicious of Laboucan because he froze during Nina's slaying and he was deemed to have “wimped out,” Wood said.

On April 5th, 2005 Briscoe and the other mall rats drove Laboucan so he could pick up his insurance cheque at an office tower in downtown Edmonton.

The police had been tipped by a call from Fort St. John and arrested Laboucan while he was in the building.

To the mall rats waiting outside, it appeared that Laboucan had double-crossed them on the promise of money, and that he might even have gone to the police.

That's when they decided to frame him, Wood said.

“I respectfully suggest that the mall rats decided to make Joseph Laboucan their fall guy and determined what, if anything, they would tell the police, if caught."

“After all, there are five of them and Joseph Laboucan is only one person. He would likely not be believed,” Wood postulated.

She said evidence of a frame job came in the form of letters that Pyro wrote to Cindy in jail. He told her to tell the police certain things about the slaying, such as that Cindy and Jane left the scene before the assault on Nina took place.

Pyro wanted Laboucan to go down because he blamed Laboucan for being first to go to the police, Wood said.

“The stories are so eerily similar in some parts, and mixed up in others, that the whole evidence given by the mall rats smacks of collusion,” Wood said.

It was clear that Jane was close to Cindy and the others because she stayed with them in the days after the murder, she said.

One night after the slaying, Jane was seen having fun with Briscoe, Briscoe's girlfriend Cindy and Buffy at a restaurant, while Laboucan appeared in distress.

He didn't eat his food and spent such a long time in the washroom that Briscoe had to go and fetch him.

A few days later, when Jane and Cindy were picked up by West Edmonton Mall security for shoplifting, they both put up such a fight they had to be handcuffed.

Wood also drew attention to weaknesses in the physical evidence presented by the Crown.

Several witnesses testified to seeing Laboucan clean blood off his arms with water after Nina's murder, but the water bottle allegedly used has never been found.

The sledgehammer and wrench used in Nina's murder have both disappeared and have never been recovered.

Medical experts also couldn't conclusively determine if it was Laboucan's DNA found on Nina's body or someone else's.

"What really happened on the golf course and who did what remains unclear even after hearing all the evidence," Wood said.

But the defence lawyer was certain of one thing. “Joseph Laboucan was a marked man,” she said.

The easy thing would be to convict everyone of first degree murder, but Laboucan should be found not guilty, Wood told Justice Burrows.

She told the judge if he rules her client had simply taken part or participated in the slaying, but did not plan it, he should only be convicted of manslaughter.

Laboucan had the most to lose and the least to gain by killing Nina, Wood said.

"Rather, it is much more realistic to believe that Jane conspired with Cindy and Buffy to take Nina Courtepatte out to a remote location and kill her."

“Joseph Laboucan had no reason to kill anyone and logic does not support the proposition that he was the ring leader. It is just as logical to find as a finding of act that Joseph Laboucan was as much the fall guy and victim as Nina Courtepatte.”

Justice Burrows reserved his decision until March 23rd, 2007.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Laboucan could face up to life in prison and at least 25 years without the possibility of parole.

In the meantime, the trial of Michael Briscoe's girlfriend Cindy got underway March 12th, 2007.

The trial continued March 23rd, 2007

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

Outside court, Laboucan's defence lawyer Laurie Wood spoke to media cameras.

She was asked about those who gave testimony against her client.

"They've all admitted to lying. Every one of them lied. Every one of them lied to police."

"And that includes the girl who wasn't charged."

She repeated the theory she presented in her closing argument.

"[Laboucan] went to the West Edmonton Mall. He basically met up with these people and he told them he was about to come into a large settlement."

"That set him up as a mark or a target."

Wood described her client's reaction to the murder.

"He was terrified. He froze as soon as the violence started – that's something that's consistent with what happened to him as a child when his mother was beaten."

Wood said the attack on Nina left Laboucan in an altered state.

"If the judge believes that then that should leave him with a doubt as to any involvement of Mr. Laboucan in this particular matter."

deadmonton 2005 - nina courtepatte - briscoe-laboucan trial - march 7th, 2007