Blood in the Water Read online

  James admits that he gave a false statement on June 2, and confirms that his intention was to “get rid of Phillip, kill him or whatever.” When they rammed Phillip’s boat, they sank it—but “we never seen Phillip after.” When the police ask him why he said that he, not Dwayne, was at the wheel when they ran over Phillip, he says he did that “because I wanted to cover my son-in-law and Craig. I wanted to take the blame myself.”

  He repeats his story that he took the rifle home and hid it under his mattress. And he says again—as he has said many times during his long day of questioning—that he regrets what they did, that he recognizes that he will have to take the consequences, and that if he had it to do over, he wouldn’t.

  But when he’s asked to sign the statement, Richardson mistakenly calls him “Phillip” and James flares right up.

  “You call me Phillip again, I won’t sign.”

  “It’s been a long day,” says Richardson. “I’m getting tired.”

  “Well, I won’t touch you for that, but don’t call me Phillip. Any other name.”

  He signs. And James’s long day is finally over. So is the video evidence, at last.

  With the video turned off, Shane Russell reads out the new agreed statement of fact: “RCMP members inspected the fifteen-horsepower Evinrude outboard motor at the bottom of Petit de Grat Harbour. There were no markings on the motor to suggest that it had been hit by any bullet.”

  After a break, Russell provides the jurors with a poor audio recording and transcript of the conversation between James and the policemen during the drive to pick up the rifle. Luke Craggs has said he wants to refer to that conversation in his final argument.

  With that, the Crown closes its case. Justice Kennedy asks Luke Craggs whether the defence wishes to call evidence in the matter.

  “No, My Lord, the defence will not be calling any evidence.”

  It’s noon, so the court calls a lunch break. When we resume, Justice Kennedy tells the jury that what they are about to hear are the two counsels’ views of the evidence, their opinion about what the evidence shows, and their attempt to guide the jurors in drawing conclusions from the evidence. But their comments are not in themselves evidence. Whenever the lawyers’ understanding differs from that of the jurors, “it is your understanding of the evidence that prevails.”

  * * *

  —

  Shane Russell thanks the jurors for their time and their commitment, then reminds them that they are the finders of fact while His Lordship is the authority on the law. The Crown’s purpose is to highlight certain parts of the evidence and try to connect the dots to show just what happened to Phillip Boudreau and how James Landry played a key role in it. He will give them five reasons which, taken together, will justify finding that James is guilty of second degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

  His first reason has to do with Phillip’s body. Its absence doesn’t mean that James can’t be found guilty; if that were so, then any murderer could escape criminal liability by effectively hiding the body. Phillip was observed alive early on June 1, 2013, by his sister Margaret Rose and his brother Kenny, who described what he was wearing—items that have been recovered and placed in evidence. Neither one has heard from Phillip during the intervening seventeen months, nor have other friends.

  At 6:55 that morning, Venard Samson—Pigou—found Phillip’s boat capsized and mostly submerged, but he didn’t find a body, which led to an elaborate and fruitless search. But Craig Landry’s testimony explains why the body was never found. And James himself—though he has denied towing and dragging and sinking Phillip’s body—has testified that he hopes the police don’t find the body. All this evidence satisfies the Crown’s need to prove two things: first, that Phillip is indeed dead, and second, what led to his death.

  The second reason to convict is that James knew Phillip and had a motive and opportunity to kill him. In his statements, James talks at length about his frustration with Phillip; it’s “a long frustration,” says Russell, “and it runs very deep.” James believes Phillip has been cutting his traps and robbing him and his family for years. The issue was directly on his mind the previous evening, when he talked about it with Phillip’s brother Gerard. James has said that if he got a chance, he was “gonna cream him.” He also met Phillip at the Corner Bridge store, when Phillip said he was going to cut more traps. James wanted to jump out of the truck and cripple him. And on the fatal Saturday, James says, he was looking to destroy Phillip, not to talk with him. This long history gave James the motive to “cripple him, cream him, destroy him, get rid of him and, most significantly, kill him.”

  The third reason to convict, Russell continues, is the physical evidence: the gun, the battered boat, the bullet holes, the paint scrapes on the Twin Maggies, the bow line, the gaff, the boots, the hat, the motor, the gas tank. All of these items, Russell says, “play a significant role in explaining what occurred.” Four bullets were fired, and only four—not because James decided to stop shooting, but because four bullets were all he had. All four hit the boat, suggesting they weren’t intended as warning shots. Russell particularly emphasizes the orange bow line, which was cut off short, supporting Craig’s description of Phillip crawling forward to cut his boat free when it was under tow. The cut line thus supports Craig’s larger story about the Twin Maggies towing Phillip out to sea, where James and Dwayne tied him to the anchor. James has plenty of opportunity to call off the attack, but he doesn’t; instead he directs it, and tells Phillip, “You won’t cut any more traps.” It’s these actions after the shooting, the directions he gives Dwayne as well as his physical actions, that tie James to the events that led to Phillip’s death. And when James talks about the events, he always says “we”—as in “we ran him over, we got him, we just missed him, we hit him.”

  James was involved “all the way,” Russell concludes. “James was not driving the boat, but he was driving the agenda.” At this point, Russell notes, James’s story and Craig’s diverge. James says Phillip went into the water and “we never seen him after.” There’s no mention of the towing, no mention of the gaffing, no mention of the anchor. Which brings Russell to his fourth reason to convict James: the testimony of Craig Landry.

  Craig has a three-year-old daughter and was employed as a deckhand on the Twin Maggies for a mere eight weeks before his employment ended on June 1. He was paid a weekly wage, and had no share of the profits. Unlike James he grew up with Phillip, saw him every day, and never had any problems with him. Russell says there are certain “hallmarks of credibility,” notably whether what a witness says is corroborated by other evidence, and he specifies a number of points on which Craig’s evidence is indeed corroborated. Craig says that four shots were fired, that James used a .30-30, that one of the shots was fired while Phillip was heading away, that he believed one of the shots hit Phillip, that after the fourth shot James had no more shells, and so on—all of which matches up with other evidence. One important point: Craig says that after the ramming Phillip was wrapped around a red gas can, whereas James says he simply disappeared. If Craig is right, Phillip was still alive after his boat had been swamped.

  Was Phillip gaffed and towed? Russell actually says “we know” that happened, and in support of Craig’s credibility he cites the divers’ testimony that if Phillip had drowned in Mackerel Cove his body should have been there, along with his boots, his cap, his boat, and so forth. He also notes testimony saying that the body should have surfaced in a few days—but not if it were tied to an anchor. None of these things in itself would be enough to show that Phillip was indeed dragged and drowned—but all of them taken together make an extremely convincing case that Craig has been telling the truth.

  The fifth and final reason to convict James Landry “is James Landry.” Russell uses a baseball analogy: Reggie Jackson of the New York Yankees, the team’s sparkplug and leader, described his role as being “the straw that stir
red the drink.” James Landry was the straw that stirred the drink during the attack on Phillip Boudreau. James Landry, “through his words, actions, and direct conduct, murdered Phillip Boudreau.” Russell reviews yet again the alleged sequence of events and James’s leading role in them: the shots, the instructions to Dwayne, the ramming, the gaffing, the towing, the drowning. James is the catalyst, the inspiration, the one who gives the orders and directs the attack. And in his interrogation, James says “I hope you don’t find him. Let the crabs eat him. They don’t have to put him in the cemetery. He don’t deserve a Mass.”

  Based on the totality of the evidence, Russell concludes that James Landry’s intention was to murder Phillip—and he did.

  * * *

  —

  After a ten-minute pause, Luke Craggs takes the floor, thanks the jurors for their service, and sets out to dismantle the Crown’s arguments.

  “Looking back at the trial,” Craggs says, “up until the time that Craig Landry testified, most of what you heard set up the circumstances.” But in order to understand what really happened, jurors have to look primarily at the testimony of the three men who were on the boat. The jurors have heard direct testimony from Craig Landry and watched three video interviews with James Landry, both of whom were on the boat, but they haven’t heard from Dwayne Samson at all. So they have to put together the story as best they can from the two men who were on the boat and have spoken.

  The first sixteen or seventeen witnesses provide the context. Phillip went to his boat around 6:00; an hour later the boat was found badly damaged in Mackerel Cove. He’d been wearing the baseball cap and rubber boots that are in the courtroom and that were found near the damaged boat, along with the gas tank and the outboard motor.

  “So something happened there,” Craggs says. “The question really is, What happened?” Again, we know a number of things. The Twin Maggies docked a little late, something looking like a rifle was removed from the boat, and so on. “There’s really no reason to doubt the authenticity of all this evidence”—and the same is true for the expert testimony: the trajectories of the bullets, the ballistics that match the bullet to the rifle, the evidence about paint and fiberglass, the evidence from the eight days of fruitless underwater searches.

  This is pertinent information, Craggs concedes, but it doesn’t directly speak to James Landry’s guilt or innocence. What really counts is the evidence provided from those who were on board the Twin Maggies— and that evidence, “in my respectful submission, is lacking. It does not establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” This brings him to Craig Landry—the person who came to court and was able to answer questions in front of the jury. His testimony should be scrutinized very carefully. It’s a crucial element of the Crown’s case.

  Some of Craig’s testimony was not controversial. Both he and James, for example, said that four shots were fired. It’s his account of “the actual things that caused Phillip’s death” that needs to be examined. Craig wants his testimony to be believed not only by the jury but also by the police, the prosecution, and the community. He doesn’t want to be known as a killer, and he doesn’t want to be convicted of murder. He has told his story with a great deal of care. He wants everyone to believe that he was in the classic situation of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had no share in the fishing business, and no reason to hurt or kill Phillip.

  But, says Craggs, “the reality is that he has charges pending, he wants to get the best outcome from the charges, and he has to go back to living in his community.” So the jury should keep an open mind about what his motivations might be. When someone is arrested and charged, says Craggs, they really have only three choices: they can remain silent, they can tell the complete truth, or they can lie. Then he goes through his reasons for suggesting that the jurors should, at the very least, be very skeptical about what Craig Landry has said.

  The essential problem with Craig’s testimony, Craggs declares, is that it was illogical. It seemed “scripted. It seemed as if it was carefully tailored to distance himself from anything bad that may have happened.” What he means by “illogical” is behaviour that’s inconsistent with normal human behaviour. When enough illogical things pile up, you have to question whether the overall story is true. With Craig’s story, the oddities accumulate in a snowball effect. You don’t think much about the first ones, but they keep accumulating, and “the more you see, the stranger it gets.”

  Craig started by describing a fairly ordinary day—until he caught sight of what turned out to be Phillip, in among their traps. At that point his language changed; his choice of words became very cautious. He reported a consensus that they should keep an eye on Phillip, and maybe the gun should be loaded. Dwayne told Craig to put three shells in the rifle. Craig did—but he didn’t put any shells into the chamber, he didn’t check whether the safety was on (though he’s an experienced hunter), and he didn’t bring the rifle on deck. He did the bare minimum that was asked of him, and his language distances him from responsibility. And when James starts shooting at Phillip, a man Craig knows, Craig doesn’t protest or interfere.

  Craggs is particularly skeptical that Craig actually “pooped himself” and then went for six or seven hours before cleaning up. There was a toilet on the boat. Why would he not have cleaned himself? Instead he resumed fishing, took a lunch break, drove to Dwayne’s house and cleaned Dwayne’s rifle, and so on—and only then did he clean himself. In addition, Craig reported that after the shooting Phillip was just sitting in the stern of his boat—not bleeding, not apparently in pain, but not taking any action at all while the Twin Maggies circled and picked up his bow line not once but twice. According to Craig, throughout the story Phillip takes no action to escape or to defend himself. How likely is that?

  Craggs finds similar problems with various other parts of Craig’s story, including the gaffing and towing, which sounds like “a horrifying and barbaric death.” But the actual homemade gaff seems too flimsy for the purpose, “a poor choice of murder weapon. This weapon just couldn’t do the job.” He wants the jury to find that the evidence about the gaffing “is fabricated”—and so is the evidence about tying Phillip to the anchor and dropping him; the railing of the Twin Maggies is too far above the water for a small man like James to reach, lift, and manipulate the weight of another man’s limp body. Again, the exchange between James and Dwayne about the precise depth of the water—12.2 fathoms—should have enabled the divers to find the body. But it didn’t. And the business of going to Dwayne’s home to help him clean the gun is strange. Dwayne owns a couple of guns: how can he possibly not know how to clean one?

  “I’m going to say—and I’m going to ask you to believe—that Craig Landry was following a script,” Craggs concludes. “He knew what he had to say. He chose his words carefully to make it look like he didn’t want anything to do with it out on the water, and all he did was help get the gun off the boat and help clean the gun after the fact. Because as soon as he went off script, he didn’t know what to say.” He did and said things “because I was told to,” as though he had no choice. There’s almost no physical evidence to support the grisly events he describes as having happened after the ramming. Craggs reminds the jury that Craig is “motivated to mislead” because he’s been charged with murder himself, and he wants to be a father to his young child. So “maybe there are noble intentions behind his dishonesty.” In any case, soon after he tells his sensational story to the police, his murder charge is dropped and he’s charged with the much lesser offence of accessory after the fact.

  The only other eyewitness testimony from the Twin Maggies’ crew is James Landry’s video testimony, which Craggs considers to be “not fully satisfying.” Craggs sees problems not only with James’s truthfulness but also with its motivation, “which may lead you to wonder whether the things that he said, incriminating himself, are actually accurate.” In general, he says, “people don’t voluntarily confess
to crimes unless they actually did them.” In these videos, nothing happens for some time—and then, well into the interrogation, James opens up. He says he regrets what happened, and then he tells his story.

  But look very carefully at what the officer has been saying to him, says Craggs, because the officer’s questions provide motivation for what James then says. Over and over again, Sergeant Richardson says that James is the real skipper; he’s sixty-five years old, he’s operated the boat and the licence for decades, his kids are grown up, and the two younger men respect him and look to him for guidance. They have young families, and long lives ahead of them. Since James is mainly responsible for what happened, he should tell the truth, bear the consequences, and take some of the pressure off Dwayne, Carla, and Craig.

  So now “a very interesting thing happens,” says Craggs. “James Landry now says that he did everything. He says he shot the gun, and he pushed Dwayne Samson aside and took control of the boat. He says the other men stood by, didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything—and really he sticks with this story that he did everything until he speaks with Staff Sergeant Gerry Landry in French towards the end of the June 7 statement.

  “Why did he do this?” Craggs asks. “He was trying to take the fall.” But after the “I did everything” story falls apart, he says—many times—that he was trying to “help my son-in-law and the other fellow,” and “I don’t want to put my daughter in trouble.” He says he “told the boys, we made a mistake” and then corrects himself to say that “I made a mistake.” He says it again in the car when the Mounties take him to Little Anse to recover the rifle, a .30-30 Winchester, and he leads them to a .30-30 under the mattress of his bed.

  Craggs pauses slightly. “What he did is, he led them to the wrong gun.” The lawyer walks over to the evidence table and points at the .30-30 rifle that has been entered in evidence. “This is Dwayne Samson’s rifle. And James keeps this charade up. He never told the police that he had led them to the wrong gun. He told them that that was the gun he had used to shoot at Phillip Boudreau’s boat.