Week two of the trial of Linda Lorraine Howe, the woman charged with attempted murder, robbery and numerous firearms offences in the shooting at Christenson Village in Gibsons last year, was marred by unforeseen delays as Crown counsel worked to conclude arguments.
Howe's defence counsel Jim Bahen told Vancouver Supreme Court Wednesday morning that he had just learned Howe could not attend court via video link because she had been booked for a consultation for herniated disk surgery at Vancouver General Hospital for later that day.
Bahen said he asked the health worker overseeing Howe while she is in custody if it was medically necessary.
"His response was: 'Absolutely, it is,'" Bahen told the court.
Bahen seemed disconcerted that he had only learned this just over an hour before he was due in court and questioned a corrections officer as to why the lack of forewarning.
He said he learned that detainees being held in a maximum security facility like Surrey Pretrial Centre, where Howe is being held, are not told when their pre-scheduled medical appointments are until the day of the appointment and no one other than health care professionals are to know in advance. He said this is done for security reasons.
Tuesday's proceedings in court were also cut short when Howe, who was appearing by video link, began showing signs of distress. It was later claimed Howe had not had her daily medication brought to her at Surrey Pretrial. But Crown counsel Richard Cairns said there is some dispute over those claims.
"That's what she said, but the sheriff said he did, so we left not knowing what had happened," Cairns said.
The trial was scheduled to resume yesterday (Thursday) and today (Friday) where Cairns said he would introduce his last five witnesses -four Sunshine Coast RCMP officers and one firearms expert.
Because of the delays, the trial will break after today's testimony until the Crown, defence and Justice Francis Cole are all able to meet again on May 25 and 26.
Cairns said he hopes to have all his evidence entered by the end of the week and it will be up to the defence to introduce witnesses and evidence when the trial resumes.
Dramatic video footage highlighted the start of the trial on Thursday, May 6.
The video footage showed Howe allegedly shooting facilities manager Kenn Perrier with a rifle when he opened the door of her suite to serve an eviction, March 31, 2009. The scenes were captured on Howe's own video system inside her suite.
The court heard that Howe subsequently fired at Perrier's fleeing companions, client services manager Liz Dutton and social worker Pat Barber, before carjacking a Ford Mustang being driven by salesman Spencer Williams who was making a sales call at the facility at the time of the alleged shooting. Howe was subsequently detained "with force" by Sunshine Coast RCMP officers in the parking lot, being shot herself.
The trial opened with Howe denying eight charges relating to the incident: three counts of attempted murder with a firearm, three more of pointing a firearm at an individual, one of robbing Williams and using a firearm in the commission of an offence. She admitted to three counts of unauthorized possession of firearms.
Bahen said he was not going to dispute events, as the issue was "whether Miss Howe possessed the specific intent to be capable of pre-meditated murder," considering her "pre-existing mental condition" and consumption of alcohol and medications.
"I do not anticipate her mental disorder eliminating responsibility. It's a trial of intent," Bahen said.
Taking the witness stand, Perrier said Howe was admitted to the assisted living part of the facility in December 2006 after suffering a brain injury in a motor vehicle accident, even though "most of the residents were in their 80s" and they were "not equipped to deal with mental health issues at the site."
He detailed the various letters he'd delivered to Howe between January and March about her upcoming eviction. Issues included her room being deemed a fire hazard by Gibsons' firefighters, the video surveillance system she had installed there, difficulties with staff and that Howe had "suggested on numerous occasions that she was capable of hurting people."
At 10 a.m. on the morning of the eviction, Perrier and Dutton realized Howe had changed the lock on her suite. They returned at noon with a locksmith, who drilled it out, after which Perrier greeted Howe and offered to help move her things out.
Perrier returned with Dutton, maintenance man Harry Brady and Barber at 4 p.m., the agreed time for the eviction.
"I opened the door of her suite," said Perrier, "and saw she was aiming a gun at me, and she shot. I fell backwards out into the hallway. I had been shot through the arm and the abdomen. "It takes a couple of seconds to register, but I immediately felt heat and pressure in my abdomen, and saw the blood. I made my way up the hallway. I do not remember parts of it. I think I was all over the place. I was holding my side. I was up against the handrail some of the time, and I believe I went down on my knees a couple of times. I was bleeding profusely.
"I looked back and saw Linda. I saw her aiming a rifle at me, standing just outside her suite in the hallway. Harry Brady yelled at me to get my head back because she was aiming the gun at me."
Perrier darted into another suite, where he called his wife and then Dutton to tell them where he was. By this point he was "feeling nauseous, covered in blood and having trouble breathing."
Cairns detailed that Howe fired a single bullet from a .303 Lee Enfield rifle at Perrier, which pierced his right forearm and entered his abdomen, cutting through his liver before becoming lodged in his back muscles. After a year of surgery, Perrier is most of the way to regaining full use of his fingers.
He also detailed that Howe fired at Dutton and Barber outside the building, with police subsequently doing laser trajectory examination on an "elongated divot" in the grass where the bullet lodged.
Cairns said when Howe was arrested, her possessions included the rifle and a 7mm Bersa semi-automatic handgun in a holster, ammunition for both, two combat knives, dog spray, an ice pick, hatchet, slingshot with ball bearings, tools, prybar, alcohol and camping equipment.
A subsequent police search of her suite yielded an additional rifle, a lever action Winchester .30-.30, two bows with arrows and the video system, on which they viewed the shooting.
- With files from Matthew Wild
