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Murderer faces new, old charge |
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Written by Dave Mabell
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Tuesday, June 16 2009, 9:14 PM |
A convicted murderer is back in Lethbridge to face a second murder charge. Just released after serving time for murder in the U.S., 51-year-old Michael Joseph Gaston Desmarais was deported to Canada this week to face a dated murder charge here.
Desmarais is charged with first-degree murder in the 1992 slaying of an Edmonton man in the Crowsnest Pass. The body of Gordon Mills, 44, was found near the remains of the Leitch Collieries.
The accused, tall and balding, was remanded without plea until Friday when he made a brief appearance Tuesday in Lethbridge provincial court. He’ll remain in jail, court was told, while he attempts to secure a lawyer.
RCMP say hikers found Mills’ body in August 1992, more than a month after he was due home from a short tour of the Alberta Rockies. Police learned he’d had no contact with his family since leaving Edmonton.
An autopsy found Mills had been shot. After reviewing witness and forensic evidence, RCMP named Desmarais as a suspect.
Before he could be arrested, however, it’s believed Desmarais headed east through Lethbridge, on to Saskatchewan — and then across the line into North Dakota. State’s attorney Charles Peterson, speaking from Dickinson, N.D., said the fugitive is believed to have crossed the border illegally on foot.
He’d reached eastern Saskatchewan in a vehicle he’d taken after the Leitch Collieries incident, Peterson said. After making his way to Interstate 94, the east-west artery linking North Dakota to Montana, he seized another vehicle.
But first, Peterson said, Desmarais shot and killed a traveller he found at a rest stop near Beach, the first town east of the Montana border. The victim was a 72-year-old man who was heading home to Washington state, after visiting family members in Minnesota.
Desmarais’ motive for the murder, the state’s lawyer said, was getting the man’s vehicle, cash and credit cards. Police were able to track him down on the East Coast by following the credit paper trail he left at service stations and other retail locations across the northern U.S.
Peterson said the Desmarais case was his first murder prosecution — and his last.
“We haven’t had another murder since then,” at least not in Golden Valley County. “Across our state, we may have seven or eight a year.”
After a preliminary hearing, Desmarais was scheduled for a jury trial on a charge of premeditated murder.
“But he ended up entering a guilty plea.”
Peterson said the court ordered a 20-year prison term. Like its northern neighbours, North Dakota had abolished capital punishment.
Much of that time has been served in a penitentiary in Oregon, he added. After earning time off for good behaviour, Desmarais completed that time on the weekend and was handed over to Canadian officials at the border.
In court Tuesday, special prosecutor Neil Wiberg said the accused will remain in remand while preparing for his next court appearance. Crown counsel will oppose any application for bail, he indicated.
The Alberta RCMP’s major crimes office has been preparing for a trial following Desmarais’ release by American authorities, he said. While a preliminary hearing may be scheduled this year, it’s not known how soon Court of Queen’s Bench dates could be set for the murder trial.
Desmarais could elect a trial by judge and jury, by judge alone — or he could once again enter a guilty plea.
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