Unsurprisingly for the examination of an almost man who killed three women and a child, the trial of Cody Allan Legebokoff was laden with its share of the unsettling and odd, from its vicious, juvenile sexual nature to the pickaroon to his imaginary friends at the end of the alphabet.
So perhaps it was fitting it ended with a judge shaking a gavel at a prime minister.
Admittedly, as National Post columnist Christie Blatchford pointed out, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett may not have been singling out Stephen Harper or even the federal Conservatives in his courtroom as he sentenced Legebokoff last week. But it seems more hopeful, more preferable to believe the judge, confronted as he was with the sadism before him, chose to wonder aloud at the stubborn indifference the prime minister, his government and many of their provincial counterparts continue to demonstrate when it comes to murdered and missing women in this country.
"I am aware of comments being made to the effect that there is no need to embark on any formal inquiry into missing and murdered women, that policing is the solution to this problem," Parrett said.
He continued later: "It is a mistake, in my view, to limit the seriousness of this issue and to pretend, as some do, that policing is an answer when the circumstances of this case raise questions about the effectiveness of that process at times."
A couple weeks before, the Canadian Press reported Harper dismissing calls for an inquiry into missing and murdered women, this time stoked by the discovery of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine's body wrapped in a bag and dumped in a Winnipeg river. Harper said the issues were "first and foremost" crimes and should be dealt with by police.
Parrett's worry - and indeed the most chilling part of the Legebokoff case - is that while the RCMP investigation into one of Canada's youngest serial killers was top-notch, "make no mistake, it was luck that began those events."
If Fort St. James Const. Aaron Kehler hadn't been meeting a fellow Mountie on Highway 27, during the night of Nov. 27, 2010, if he hadn't happened to spot Legebokoff pulling out from a rarely used logging road south of Vanderhoof, if Legebokoff hadn't been speeding, if the rookie member's instincts hadn't been sharp... A lot of solid police work ensnared Cody Legebokoff but a long chain of good fortune and sheer fluke enabled him to be captured so quickly. He'd already killed three women - Jill Stuchenko, Cynthia Maas and Natasha Montgomery - over the course of about a year by the time Const. Kehler caught up to him. The police may have been able to link him to what would have been the disappearance of the teenager Loren Leslie but, just as likely, he would have killed again.
The police weren't hunting a psychopathic virtuoso. Blatchfold described Legebokoff as "just another garden-variety predator" who left a slug's trail of blood, soiled clothing and murder weapons behind him. The saddest part of Legebokoff's crimes is how little effort it took for a drug-addled pervert to prey on three vulnerable women and a child and why predators like him keep prospering, again and again.
The prime minister would have Canadians believe "we should not view this as sociological phenomenon. We should view it as crime." Parrett, however, differs: "It is a sociological issue - one that arises from, among other things, a high-risk lifestyle. It is something that must be dealt with."
To the Tories, some Canadians live a high-risk lifestyle the same way people enjoy bungee jumping or driving race cars; they take a risk, bad things happen and authorities, in this case the police, clean up the mess afterwards. But while circumstance and mistakes take women into the world of survival sex, poverty and addiction, few truly wish to stay there; in the case of aboriginal women and girls, historic wrongs and ongoing government policies make them all the more likely to be pulled and remain in that bleak place.
So far, governments' response has been piecemeal and inadequate in addressing the factors that make women vulnerable to predators like Legebokoff, rather than chasing their killers after that fact. Continued resistance to calls for a national inquiry; "action plans" that throw old money after empty promises; and a handful of crime-fighting tools that are useful but mainly help the dismembered. Parrett pointed to the 84 per cent reduction in funding for the B.C. RCMP's Project E-Pana task force, which is investigating, among other things, the murders and disappearances along the so-called Highway of Tears; B.C. Justice Minister Suzanne Anton swears all that's happening is "investigations are scaled down and members re-purposed."
Scaled down and re-purposed. Until the provincial and federal government stops treating missing and murdered women as political inconveniences, the Legebokoffs and Picktons will continue to idly feast on the spoils of continued, calculated neglect.
"We simply must do better," Parrett told the courtroom. In that respect, he wasn't just addressing Harper, the Tories or even the B.C. Liberals. He was speaking to everyone.
