(Inspired by an article in the Toronto Sun, March 2011.)
Cruel and inhumane are adjectives often used to
describe people who commit heinous crimes—that is, crimes so horrible that no
amount of prison time or ineligibility for parole could possibly be sufficient
for these criminals to pay for their actions. Other expletives might well
include “extraordinary” or “excessive” cruelty and “incalculable” inhumanity,
especially in this particular case.
My name is Nancy Graham. I am a court
reporter who saw this case being tried in the courts, and I could not contain
my abject feelings of horror with respect to the accused, a senior couple, and
the crime of murder for which they were being tried. It was another case of “man’s
[gross] inhumanity to man”—this time with a very young child as the poor,
hapless victim.
Now, try imagining yourself as a juror in
the murder trial of the grandparents of this starved young child. The baby, who
had weighed 22 pounds at 15 months of age, now weighed only 22 pounds at the
time of his death when he was a child of 5 years
of age. This couple had been starving their grandchild for more than 4 years!
The Crown and defence attorneys must have
found it extremely difficult to find suitable jurors for such a trial. Number
one—eligible jurors cannot have prior knowledge (from public media, etc.) about
the crime or accused in question. Number two—eligible jurors would have had to
convince the attorneys for both sides that they could make an impartial
judgment based on all the relevant facts. And number three—eligible jurors
cannot have a bias against seniors simply by thinking senior citizens are not
capable of committing such horrible crimes. However, as difficult as it must
have been, a suitable jury was finally assembled for the trial.
In 2006, this senior couple was eventually
convicted of the November 2002 second-degree murder in the starving death of
their young grandson. They were each sentenced to at least 20 years to life in
prison for the “grotesque severe-malnutrition killing” of their grandson. The
couple actually had the nerve to appeal their second-degree murder convictions
and lengthy parole ineligibility terms (as being “excessive”) in March 2011! But,
thank God, both appeals were denied by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The
decision was handed down by the Associate Chief Justice without his even asking
for any input from the Crown attorneys who were, naturally, opposing any such
appeal by this couple. The 69-year-old woman, Elva Bottineau, was ordered to
serve 22 years in prison, and the man, her common-law husband, was ordered to
serve 20 years in prison before being allowed to apply for parole.
The couple’s defence attorneys were still
arguing with the Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal that the periods of
their parole ineligibility were “excessive,” particularly in comparison with a
similar case in the past involving a father and stepmother who had been
convicted of killing their 7 year old son in 1998. The Justice was dumbfounded,
to say the least, at their argument. It was difficult for him to put his utter
revulsion into words.
Fortunately, as far as the Justice was
concerned, the defence team could not make its case for appealing the parole
ineligibility terms of the two convictions.
The young child victim, Jeffrey Baldwin, almost
6 years of age, ended up dying of septic shock and pneumonia, which were
complications of his severe malnutrition. It was a truly horrible way for a
young child, or anyone for that matter, to die.
It made me think of a similar situation of
a good friend arising last year that began as a bout with the flu. In April
2010, a close friend of my family, Ed, became very ill and ended up in the
hospital for two full weeks in the ICU with a tube stuck down his throat
because he couldn’t breathe properly. The symptoms that had landed him in the
ICU were the same as young Jeffrey’s symptoms—septic shock and pneumonia—only
Ed’s symptoms were triggered, I believe, by something approaching diabetic
shock (an insufficient amount of insulin). That’s because he’s a diabetic who
wasn’t taking his insulin as he should have been during his bout with the flu. He
must have been suffering terribly for days before his hospitalization and
finally, his family had to call 911 when they could see, clearly, that he was
incoherent and unresponsive to any kind of verbal stimuli. According to his
family, he actually looked like he was at death’s door by the time they called 911.
Fortunately, he did recover completely even though the recovery process took a
very long time and the doctors had to continue watching his health very
carefully for months.
In a sense, if a person has never been in
that situation before, it would be impossible to imagine what it feels like to
be that ill, but young Jeffrey was dying long before he actually expired. It
could probably be likened to slow death from cancer, in my mind, and we all
know what a horrible disease cancer is.
Personally, I believe this senior couple
got off relatively easy during trial. If there were still a death penalty
available, this couple would certainly have qualified for it. I have zero
sympathy for people who hurt other people, especially children. Not only that, Jeffrey
was their grandson. No, those two people should rot in hell. Their lengthy
prison sentences would hopefully end up being a far worse punishment for them
than a simple lethal injection. That’s my feeling about this case, and I
believe a lot of other people out there would agree wholeheartedly with me in
this regard.
copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
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