Raymond Cormier’s fate is now in the hands of 11 jury members as deliberation begins

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Deliberations have begun for the jury tasked with deciding Raymond Cormier’s fate, and jurors have only two choices: the 56-year-old man is either guilty of second-degree murder or he isn’t.

The 11-member jury won’t have to wrestle with what Cormier’s state of mind was or what his intentions were when it came to Tina Fontaine. If they decide he caused her death unlawfully, they must find him guilty of second-degree murder, Court of Queen’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal instructed them Wednesday. In this case, a lesser charge such as manslaughter is not an option. If they believe Cormier’s repeated denials, or if they believe the Crown did not prove he killed Tina beyond a reasonable doubt, they must find him not guilty.

Before they can reach a verdict, jurors will have to answer two questions in a case where there is a web of circumstantial evidence and a complete lack of forensic evidence that could link 15-year-old Tina to her accused killer.

First, was Tina’s death caused by an unlawful act? Second, if it was, did Cormier commit the unlawful act? Only if the jury unanimously answers yes to both questions can it find Cormier guilty.

Over the course of about four hours Wednesday, Joyal delivered detailed legal instructions to the jury to explain how they should approach their task. Just because the official cause of the 15-year-old’s death was undetermined, he told them, doesn’t mean she didn’t die by an unlawful act. Crown prosecutors argue Tina was either drowned — submerged in water while she was still alive — or smothered to death. Neither of those means would have left any signs or obvious injuries on her body in the end, and none were found, according to the pathologist who conducted the autopsy.

Cormier’s defence lawyers, Andrew Synynshyn and Tony Kavanagh, argue the Crown hasn’t proven Tina was murdered. They suggest she died accidentally, by “self-smothering” or by a drug overdose. The pathologist, Dr. Dennis Rhee, couldn’t rule out the possibility of a lethal combination of alcohol and a prescription anti-seizure drug called gabapentin. The jury heard evidence, from an emergency room doctor who examined Tina the day she was last seen alive, and from Tina’s teenage boyfriend, that she had taken “gabbys” recreationally. Cormier gave her and her boyfriend the drugs on at least one occasion.

An RCMP lab toxicologist, Christopher Keddy, testified Tina’s toxicology results, while likely artificially high due to body decomposition and being measured from chest cavity fluid rather than from the blood stream, didn’t show lethal levels of marijuana or alcohol. There was no evidence of gabapentin in the toxicology results, but there were no tests in 2014 that could measure the drug in anything less than toxic levels. Keddy testified gabapentin overdose deaths are very rare.

There is “little if any evidence,” to support the theory of a gabapentin overdose, Joyal told the jury. But as with the rest of the evidence they must carefully consider, he said, it’s ultimately up to them to decide.

Cormier’s defence team argues even if the jury believes Tina died from an unlawful act, there’s still not enough evidence to prove that Cormier was responsible. There is no DNA evidence connecting him to Tina’s body or to a stolen truck the Crown suggested he could have used to transport her body. Tina’s DNA was also not found in the truck.

There’s evidence that Cormier had an argument with Tina on the night of Aug. 6, 2014, in which she threatened to call the police on him for stealing a blue pickup truck. Cormier was making sexual advances toward Tina earlier that day and was “creeping her out,” a former friend of his, Sarah Holland, testified. Tina got angry that Cormier had sold her bike for drugs, and Cormier would later say that his last words to her were “go jump off a bridge.” They’d met earlier that summer, when Tina and her boyfriend Cody Mason told Cormier they had nowhere to go, and the much older man, an admitted meth addict, gave them drugs and would hang out with them at a house in Elmwood.

Tina was last seen alive Aug. 8, 2014 around 5 p.m., when she left her Child and Family Services placement at the Best Western Charterhouse hotel and said she was going to Portage Place Mall to see some friends. Earlier that day, she’d told a social worker she was expecting to get another bike from her friend Sebastian, an alias Cormier was using. Crown prosecutors told jurors they can infer that Tina met up with Cormier again, likely that same night, and was never seen again.

During his closing arguments Tuesday, Crown prosecutor James Ross pointed jurors to “admissions of guilt” from Cormier in secret recordings captured during an undercover police investigation.

Before the jury began its deliberations Wednesday afternoon, Joyal cautioned them that the transcripts of the secret recordings are not considered evidence. They must listen to the audio during their deliberations to decide what was said.

“In deciding whether Mr. Cormier actually said the things the Crown alleges, you are to use as your reference point the actual recordings and your common sense to determine whether those alleged comments were made and properly interpreted as suggested by the Crown,” Joyal said.

He also said jurors must pay attention to any evidence they heard about the condition Cormier was in when he made those statements. An undercover police officer testified that during the course of the six-month police investigation known as Project Styx, Cormier was using drugs.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay

Judge's charge to the jury