In April, Canadians reacted with shock after a top Canadian military commander, who frequently piloted planes for top political figures and dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth II, was charged with rape, murder and an extensive campaign of perverse home break-ins.
On Monday, gasps were intermixed with tears in a courtroom here as an audience heard details that made clear for the first time the scale and perversity of the crimes to which the military commander, Colonel David Russell Williams, pled guilty — hundreds of underwear thefts, many from young girls, that escalated to the assault and murder of two women.
The unmasking of Williams as a sexual killer has been a blow for the Canadian Armed Forces. Until his arrest, he commanded Canada’s largest air base, the logistical fulcrum for the country’s military mission in Afghanistan.
Photo: Reuters
Apparently bringing his logistical and organizational skills to bear, Williams wrote detailed accounts of his crime and meticulously photographed the evidence, compiling the data in what prosecutors called “a deeply nested and complex series of subfolders” on two computer hard drives.
Five catalogs of photographs, only a sampling of the evidence, sat in front of Justice Robert Scott during Monday’s hearing.
Williams broke into houses primarily in the two neighborhoods where he had homes. He broke into many of them repeatedly, nine times in one case. The break-ins were deft. Most of the victims were unaware that their homes had been entered or that anything had been stolen until they or their families were contacted by the police after Williams was arrested in February.
Williams came under suspicion when the body of the second murder victim was found near his cottage in the village of Tweed, about 64km from the Canadian Forces Base in Trenton. After stopping him at a roadblock, the police noticed that the unusual tread patterns on the tires of his sport utility vehicle matched those found at the murder scene. A subsequent search of his home in Ottawa turned up hundreds of pieces of female underwear and his meticulous photographic record.
It took a court clerk 40 minutes to simply read the list of 88 charges before a room that included family members of the victims. Looking pale and with his voice barely audible, Williams offered his plea.
Prosecutors reviewed how Williams began each break-in by photographing the victim’s room and underwear drawer. In most of the early break-ins, the photographs show the rooms of girls, including 11-year-old twins, that are decorated with stuffed animals and animal photographs.
He then photographed himself — often sexually aroused or masturbating — modeling their underwear.
Once back home, he photographed his total haul of the underwear and then each individual item. Occasionally, he added captions. One of those read, Merci beaucoup.
He stole 87 pairs of underwear belonging to an Ottawa high school student in a single break-in. Twice, he took loads of the stolen garments to the outskirts of Ottawa and burned them.
Robert Morrison, one of five prosecutors, told the court that Williams’ “peculiar sexuality” first led him to break into a neighbor’s home to masturbate on the daughter’s bed with her underwear. That break-in, in Tweed, escalated into break-ins of 47 other homes near Tweed as well as in Ottawa, where he spent weekends with his wife.
However, the crimes escalated. He broke into the homes of two women near his air base in September last year, forced them to strip and then blindfolded and photographed them. But he was not recognized by the victims.
Last October, he broke into the home of Corporal Marie-France Comeau, an air force flight attendant based at Trenton who had flown with Williams. The police said she died after being beaten and having her mouth and nose sealed with tape.
In late January, the second woman, Jessica Lloyd, 27, was reported missing. Her body was found on Feb. 8.
Williams faces life in prison, with no possibility of parole for at least 25 years.
Canada’s chief of defense staff, General Walt Natynczyk, said Williams’ crimes “stunned all Canadians and none more so than the members of the Canadian Forces.”
His “guilty plea is the first step in a healing process that will no doubt take many years,” Natynczyk said.
Williams commanded Canada’s busiest air force base, the 437 Squadron in Trenton, east of Toronto, for more than a year prior to his arrest.
While in prison, he attempted suicide and held a hunger strike, but cooperated fully with investigators.
Additional reporting by AFP
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