Killer blames child porn
Internet sites spurred acts of savagery, says Holly Jones's murderer TORONTO - Michael Briere was a software programmer with no criminal record when he watched child pornography one drizzly evening in May 2003 - and within minutes, he'd snatched a 10-year-old girl from the street and then sexually assaulted, strangled and dismembered her in a crime he described as "cruel, inhuman and nightmarish." Briere, 36, pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder in the sex slaying of Holly Jones. His plea came a year after DNA evidence from a soda-pop can he tossed into a streetside recycling bin almost a month after Holly's abduction linked him to the murder of the cheerful schoolgirl who lived just blocks from his home. |
The Montreal native wept in court as he apologized for acting out what was described as his "dark secret" - his fantasy to have sex with a child. Holly's mother, Maria Jones, bowed her head and sobbed through most of his remarks.
"A man who commits this type of crime - you put him away, you put him away for good," a clean-shaven Briere, wearing an olive-green suit and with his long black hair in a ponytail, told Ontario Superior Court.
"I have failed as a human being. I want to state that for my actions, which were cruel, inhuman and nightmarish, I do apologize."
The details of his crime were shocking even for the veteran police officers and reporters in the courtroom, many of whom wept during the 90-minute hearing.
And his claim in the statement of facts that he was incited by kiddie porn prompted immediate and plaintive pleas from Crown attorney Paul Culver and Holly's family for Ottawa to enact tougher laws to combat the scourge of child pornography.
Even Briere himself, in his confession to police, made reference to the ease with which he was able to view child porn both at home and at work.
"The simplicity of getting material . . . it's close to mind-boggling," he says in the 61-page document. "I have never understood how come the whole thing wasn't shut down, just because of the nature of it. You search for the word 'baby' and it will find stuff there . . . it's easy . . . you don't need a degree.
"I don't know how it is for other people, but for myself, I would say that, yes, viewing the material does motivate you to do other things . . . the more I saw it, the more I long for it in my heart."
Indeed, the statement of facts makes clear Holly was simply a random victim of Briere's uncontrollable impulses as he sought out a young girl after viewing kiddie porn on the Internet on the evening of May 12, 2003.
Aroused after downloading the images, Briere went onto the street in the west-end neighbourhood known as the Junction Triangle. He spotted Holly on a street corner as she walked home from a friend's house, grabbed her by the neck and took her through a laneway to his apartment.
Inside, Briere disrobed both himself and Holly, sexually assaulted her - "I never actually completed the act" - and then strangled her, all in about an hour, before dismembering her.
"I always had the fantasy of having sexual relations with a little girl," Briere is quoted as telling police in the statement. "So I just got carried away, and I walked outside, and Holly was . . . I didn't know her, I'd never seen her before . . . If she wouldn't have been on the street corner, I probably would have just walked the street and just gone back home."
He stuffed Holly's body in his fridge. Figuring he couldn't dispose of it in full, he used a small handsaw from his toolbox to dismember her.
He disposed of her remains over three days: the night of her murder, he carried her torso in a gym bag on the subway, panicking when some blood seeped onto the floor, and then dumped it into the Toronto harbour.
The next day, he rode the subway again with a travel bag containing more body parts, dumping them in another part of Lake Ontario.
On the third day after her murder, he stuffed more remains into garbage bags and put them on the curb outside his apartment for trash pickup.
Briere received an automatic life sentence and will not be eligible for parole for 25 years. The sentence gave little comfort to Holly's family.
"There can be no closure for us here today," Holly's mother said in her victim impact statement read to the court. "We will always continue to think of Holly every waking moment."
Tim Danson, the family's lawyer, said Holly's father, George Stonehouse, couldn't attend the hearing because he "couldn't control himself."
Justice David Watt had harsh words in response to Briere's apology.
"Your crime profoundly shocked this community and city and it is a community that is no longer easily shocked by crimes of violence," he said. "A random abduction on a quiet city street, a sexual assault, a murder, dismemberment, a young active life, like others full of promise, snuffed out."
He added: "There seems no bottom in the depravity pool nor any limits to the vulnerability of our children."
Outside court, Culver said Briere's case puts a spotlight on the disturbing prevalence of child pornography.
"If this isn't a case that brings home to society, to government, to legislatures and to those involved in the prosecution and resolution of child pornography cases that this cancer on our society must be stopped and stamped out, then I can't think of one," he said. In the end, Briere was nailed by investigators using DNA evidence. He refused to give a sample to police during a door-to-door canvass shortly after Holly's remains were found. An eagle-eyed investigator noticed a green bath mat and carpeting inside Briere's home that matched fibres found on the girl's body.
So the authorities followed him - picking up discarded garbage, including the pop can that matched DNA found under Holly's fingernails.
Ten-year-old Holly Jones, the victim
of a gruesome murder, was abducted at random from a Toronto street by Michael
Briere in May 2003.
New York sex offenders getting free Viagra
Tuesday, May 24, 2005 at 07:42 JST
NEW YORK — U.S. federal officials struggled Monday to respond to
the revelation that high-risk sex offenders were getting free supplies of the
erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, with taxpayers picking up the tab.
On Sunday, New York State Comptroller Alan Havesi said a
routine audit had shown that over the past five years, 198 level-three sex
offenders had received free Viagra through the government's Medicaid health
service for the poor.
The victims of the offenders involved ranged in age from two to 90
years old, while the offences ran the gamut from sexual touching to
first-degree rape.
Havesi wrote a letter to Health Secretary Michael Leavitt,
urging "immediate action to ensure that sex offenders do not receive
erectile dysfunction medication paid for by the taxpayers."
Convicted sex offenders in the United States are classified
according to their risk of re-offending, with level one representing the lowest
risk and level three the highest.
Mary Kahn, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Health
and Human Services, said Viagra was covered by Medicaid according to a statute
requiring coverage of all drugs that are prescribed for medically necessary
purposes.
"This particular population ... it's a difficult
question," Kahn said of the sex offenders.
"We are looking closely at what alternatives there may be
for us to take or for states to take," she said.
The comptroller's report triggered outrage among local New
York politicians.
"There is no excuse for allowing level three sex
predators, the absolute worst of the worst, to have Viagra," said state
assembly speaker Sheldon Silver.
New York Senator
Charles Schumer told a press conference that it was "mind-boggling"
that high-risk predators should have free access to the drug. "What we
know about level three offenders is this," Schumer said. "They almost
never change. They're almost never rehabilitated." (Wire reports)
"Rapists, sex offenders and child molesters should be castrated,
period."
Attacked
Stranger punched boy,
yelling, ‘All children must die’
By
Rachel Boomer
The Daily News
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Nine-year-old
Liam Mulcahy doesn’t know why a strange man attacked him on his neighbourhood
playground Sunday morning, yelling “all children must die” and punching him
repeatedly in the face.
But Liam is in
no hurry to go back out to the playground any time soon.
“Once he got
pretty close to me, I just tried to run away,” the quiet boy said yesterday,
the right side of his face badly swollen and bruised.
“It was
scary.”
Mulcahy was
attacked by the stranger in his Mandaville Court neighbourhood at 11:25 a.m.
Just three hours earlier, the same man had walked out of a holding cell,
charged with punching a police officer during an arrest for a minor property
crime.
Mulcahy’s
mother, Merritt Morris, doesn’t blame police for letting the man go.
“I don’t blame
them for anything. I don’t think they realized he had problems or needed help.
I don’t think they would have let him go (otherwise),” Morris said.
Neighbour Pam
Webb was watching her oldest daughter from her window when she saw a screaming
man heading for the area where four or five children, including Liam, were
playing.
“He said, ‘All
children must die.’ He picked Liam up by the back of the shirt, flipped him
over, and started pounding on the side of his face,” Webb said.
“The side of
his head was just blood, and his (cheek) was the size of a grapefruit.”
Webb chased
the man away, and someone held him until police arrived.
“The force he
was pounding that little boy’s face with — it was unreal,” Webb said.
The Pleasant
Valley man, whose name wasn’t released, had his first run-in with police on
Ochterloney Street at 3 a.m. He fled when police tried to arrest him for
property damage, then punched an officer in the face.
He was charged
with property damage, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest, but was
released from a holding cell at 8:18 a.m., said Halifax Regional Police
spokeswoman Theresa Brien.
“He was being
arrested in relation to a very minor offence. We had no grounds to keep him in
custody,” Brien said. “We had no way to predict what would happen.
Brien said
legally, police can only hold someone in jail for property crimes if they have
a record of not appearing in court, or if their behaviour suggests a risk to
public safety. Punching a police officer doesn’t count.
“That’s a very
common occurrence for us,” Brien said.
Morris said
she’s not nervous about the neighbourhood, but she’s glad the man has been sent
for a psychiatric assessment.
“Hopefully,
he’ll stay there.”
The man will
be in court tomorrow, charged with aggravated assault, uttering threats,
resisting police and assaulting police.