#Most disturbing crimes ever committed trial

Smith, a 54-year-old broadcaster, was rushing to a community event from the CTV station, blissfully unaware that Jeffrey Arenburg, a paranoid schizophrenic, was waiting in the parking lot - looking for someone - most likely anyone, that he recognized. Two other men received sentences after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Henderson, who was 18-years-old at the time of the conviction, received an automatic life sentence. In 1996, a jury convicted Rubens Henderson of second-degree murder. In a special one-day event sponsored by the Ottawa, Nepean and Gloucester police, 300 weapons were collected. apartment building arresting three youths, two 16-year-olds and a 17-year-old.Īs the investigation continued, the city rallied around Battersby's parents and against gun violence.Īs part of the response, a three-month gun amnesty was launched. The random, drive-by shooting shocked residents who had previously associated such violence with cities like Los Angeles.īattersby had only recently moved to Ottawa from England.ĭays after the shooting, police raided a King Edward Ave. One of the men shot Battersby in the back, killing him. on March 27, 1994, when a stolen Jeep with three men inside, one of them armed, approached. Nicholas Battersby was strolling down Elgin St. She was last seen talking to a man at the corner of Dalhousie and Clarence streets, less than 12 hours before her body was found by a homeless man. The girl was desperate and two months pregnant and prostitution provided a way to make some money.įriends said she was fearful - with an angry ex-boyfriend on one side and a violent pimp who demanded $600 a night - on the other. Sheppit had turned to prostitution three weeks before her death. He and his wife, Diane, split up in late 1989, with Diane taking the two youngest siblings back to Oakville and Melinda and her brother, Michael, staying in Ottawa. When her father, Peter Sheppit, got a job as a security guard in the capital, the family moved to a townhouse in Ottawa's Hunt Club area. Until two years before her murder, Sheppit lived with her parents, her sister and two brothers in Oakville.

Only days before, the 16-year-old had called her relatives in Oakville and told them she was going to return to the Toronto area. Now 25 years after her murder, Melinda Sheppit's killer is still free. Semen gathered from the boy's bed was connected to his uncle and used as evidence during the trial.Ĭlaude Bourguignon was sentenced to life in prison for the crime. The case was also one of the first high profile uses of DNA evidence in the city.

#Most disturbing crimes ever committed trial

The trial had been relocated because of intense public attention. It took nearly three months before his uncle Claude was charged with the boy's murder and two more years before he was convicted in a Barrie court. Days after the killing, a bus loaded with 30 plainclothes detectives arrived in the neighbourhood where the boy lived.Īn autopsy showed the boy had been savagely sodomized and strangled with a leather belt. Police were under intense pressure as they worked to lay charges. The boy was at the centre of a custody dispute and had been left home alone with his uncle by his father who slept over at a girlfriend's. Police were first told the boy was missing at 8 a.m. He opened the bag to find the brutalized and sexually abused young Paul. When he opened the box, Winsor saw a green garbage bag. on June 2, 1989, when he noticed an out-of-place box on top of a dumpster near the boy's home. Alan Winsor was one of several officers looking for missing toddler Paul Bourguignon, Jr. 8 minute read Photo by Ottawa Sun file photo Article contentĪs the Sun revisits the 20th anniversary of the brutal slaying of Sylvain Leduc, these are some of the other crimes that have shocked the capital.