Toronto dad admits slashing two-year-old to death
Hownow
From the Toronto Star:
Peter Currie took his little 2-year-old daughter into a secluded wooded
area, slashed her throat four times and left her to die alone.
As the father returned to his rented van, Alexis clutched dirt and
leaves in her tiny left hand under a pine tree where she was later
found lying face down. The toddler died from the sharp force injuries
to the neck; hypothermia was also a contributing factor.
"It must have taken a number of hours ... waiting for her inevitable
fate," prosecutor Rob Clark said to Mr. Justice David Watt yesterday.
Currie, 41, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the March 9, 2002
slaying of his daughter Alexis and was sentenced to the mandatory
sentence of life in prison yesterday. Watt agreed to a joint submission
by prosecutor Rob Clark and defence lawyer Austin Cooper and ordered
that Currie not be considered for parole for 18 years. Currie was
originally charged with first-degree murder, meaning police and
prosecutors believed the father had planned the killing.
While Clark read an agreed statement of facts to the court, Peter
Currie sat in the prisoner's box with his head down. His wife Maureen,
Alexis' mother, sat in the front row of the gallery clutching a framed
picture of Alexis and her sister Robyn. Other family members wore white
and pink ribbons.
Currie, who was suffering from depression when he killed Alexis, was
separated from his wife after being charged and convicted of assaulting
her. Four days before Peter Currie killed Alexis, the Curries agreed to
allow Peter Currie unsupervised visits with Alexis and Robyn, then 4.
In the days following, Peter Currie, a TTC mechanic, asked a colleague
for a length of trolley rope, Clark said. Aware of Currie's family
problems, the co-worker asked why he wanted it.
"In response, Mr. Currie said simply, `Read the papers Monday,'" Clark
said. Currie reassured the colleague he wouldn't harm himself but
added, "You may not see me again."
On March 9, Currie picked up his children as had been arranged. Robyn
later recalled going shopping and getting cookies at a grocery store.
Currie drove the girls to a rural area on Westney Rd., near Pickering,
Clark said.
"Mr. Currie parked the rented van on the side of the road and, leaving
Robyn in the vehicle, took Alexis with him. Mr. Currie climbed a fence
into a dense bush composed of birch, pine and cedar trees," the
prosecutor said.
Then Currie took out a knife and cut his daughter's throat.
After returning to the van, he drove to a relative's home in Whitby
with Robyn. Currie told family members Alexis was with her mother.
The next evening, Currie drove Robyn to a Toronto park near her
grandparents' home and told her to go see her grandparents.
On March 11, police found Currie at a Kingston Rd. motel. He told
officers Alexis was okay but wouldn't reveal her whereabouts. Police
found a knife on Currie, as well as fur-lined handcuffs, masking tape
and 2.5 gallons of gasoline and some nylon rope. None of those objects
were used in killing Alexis, Clark said.
In an interview with homicide Detective Sergeant Regg Pitts, Currie
said the system had been unfair to him and he had lost everything as a
result of the assault charge.
"Mr. Currie also mentioned that he had really 'messed up' his life,"
Clark told the court.
On March 14, five days after he killed his daughter, Currie led
officers to the area where he had left her. After hours of searching,
the little girl's body was found. She was wearing the same clothes her
mother had dressed her in on the Saturday; her hat was on the ground
near her head.
A psychiatrist later concluded Currie suffered from a "depressive
disorder and heightened anxiety that resulted in an episode of
depersonalization." However, Currie was "capable of forming the
requisite intent to commit the offence of murder," Clark said.
Making a statement to the court, Currie stood in the prisoner's box,
crying as he said he was sorry for what he had done.
"I know I have to be punished for it ... I had no right to cause harm
to everyone else. It was just between me and my wife and it should have
stayed that way," he said.
Then reading a letter to his daughter Robyn, Currie said he loved her.
"I want you to know there's nothing you could have done. I was messed
up," he said.
Currie asked his daughter to remember the good times they had shared.
"You're strong enough to overcome the trauma that I caused you. I will
always love you and I think about you both all the time."
In his submission to the judge, Currie's lawyer Austin Cooper said his
client was a good father who had tried to get help for his depression.
Killing his daughter was an impulsive act, the lawyer said.
Clark disagreed with Cooper's position, saying the facts in the case
show that Currie planned to kill Alexis.
Outside court, Maureen Currie said it was difficult to hear about her
daughter's struggle to survive.
"It hurts a lot ... but justice is done," she said, adding she still
feels rage and torment.
When asked what she thought about her husband's comment that he should
have kept things between him and his wife, Maureen Currie said, "that's
what I'm talking about. The source of all evils."
As for her surviving daughter, Robyn is doing fine, she said.
"We're determined to get on with our lives."
tiny dancer
"Hownow" <how...@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
news:260320030222316419%how...@cogeco.ca...
>
> From the Toronto Star:
>
> Peter Currie took his little 2-year-old daughter into a secluded wooded
> area, slashed her throat four times and left her to die alone.
And this guy only serves 18 years for this horrendous crime?? I don't get
it, doesn't anyone serve life in Canada?? What a horrible crime...........
td
Aussie Lurker
>
> Peter Currie took his little 2-year-old daughter into a secluded wooded
> area, slashed her throat four times and left her to die alone.
>
> "It must have taken a number of hours ... waiting for her inevitable
> fate," prosecutor Rob Clark said to Mr. Justice David Watt yesterday.
>
FAR OUT cuts the throat of a 2 year old and it takes several hours for her
to die..........and he gets l8 years... I don't believe it. What a joke.
Aussie Lurker
Maggie
news:260320030222316419%how...@cogeco.ca...
>
> From the Toronto Star:
>
> Peter Currie took his little 2-year-old daughter into a secluded wooded
> area, slashed her throat four times and left her to die alone.
>
> "It must have taken a number of hours ... waiting for her inevitable
> fate," prosecutor Rob Clark said to Mr. Justice David Watt yesterday.
>
Aussie L said:
FAR OUT cuts the throat of a 2 year old and it takes several hours for her
to die..........and he gets l8 years... I don't believe it. What a joke. >>
***Agreed. Seems to me that this case is exactly what the death penalty (or
LWOP, in Canada) is for.
Maggie
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
--Edmund Burke
Lori
>
> << "Hownow" <how...@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
> news:260320030222316419%how...@cogeco.ca...
> >
> > From the Toronto Star:
> >
> > Peter Currie took his little 2-year-old daughter into a secluded wooded
> > area, slashed her throat four times and left her to die alone.
> >
>
> > "It must have taken a number of hours ... waiting for her inevitable
> > fate," prosecutor Rob Clark said to Mr. Justice David Watt yesterday.
> >
> Aussie L said:
> FAR OUT cuts the throat of a 2 year old and it takes several hours for her
> to die..........and he gets l8 years... I don't believe it. What a joke. >>
>
> ***Agreed. Seems to me that this case is exactly what the death penalty (or
> LWOP, in Canada) is for.
>
> Maggie
>
(snip from original post from Hownow)
>In an interview with homicide Detective Sergeant Regg Pitts, Currie
>said the system had been unfair to him and he had lost everything as a
>result of the assault charge.
That mean 'ol unfair system rears its ugly head again! Guess he showed
them... by slitting the throat of his own flesh and blood.
Lori
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Hownow
<maggi...@aol.comSPAMBLOC> wrote:
ustice David Watt yesterday.
> >
> Aussie L said:
> FAR OUT cuts the throat of a 2 year old and it takes several hours for her
> to die..........and he gets l8 years... I don't believe it. What a joke. >>
>
> ***Agreed. Seems to me that this case is exactly what the death penalty (or
> LWOP, in Canada) is for.
>
>
> Maggie
>
A bit of FYI here:
There is no LWOP in Canada ... for either first degree or
second-degree murder.
Even Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olsen will get parole hearings when
they've done 25 years -- the mandatory for first-degree murder. But
they will die in prison.
Second degree murder convictions carry a mandatory minimum 10-years to
be served before parole.
In this particular case, the court set it at 18 years to be served
before parole eligibility.
Theoretically, he could still serve life if he is denied parole at the
end of 18 years. If released he stays on parole for life.
He should not have been allowed to plead to second-degree. The planning
and the killing of one while letting the other go home indicate a cold
and calculating malevolence.
This type of killer is seldom executed anymore in North America.
Nor do they serve out full sentences unless they remain a danger to
family members or society at large..
And whatever sentence is handed down is not a deterrent to those who
slay their children during family strife. It's not a rare crime. If
he'd smothered or shot the child I might not have posted.
And, perhaps, I might not have posted had the writer of the article not
done such a good job of raising emotion.
And there would have been little discussion beyond a couple of days of
the murder being discovered had this guy shown a smidgen of grace by
killing himself.
- hm
Aussie Lurker
Is the death penalty imposed very often in Toronto?
Aussie Lurker
Hownow
<whoc...@lol.com.au> wrote:
Not since 1964 when a double hanging turned out to be the last
executions in Canada, which abolished the death penalty in 1976.
Before that, as in most of Canada, the mandatory hanging for murder was
mostly done on the poor and unconnected or, as on the Canadian Prairies
during the early decades of the last century, members of whatever
non-WASP immigrant groups occupied the lower rungs of the social scale
-- such as Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans.
(At one time in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan had a membership numbering
in the thousands in Saskatchewan where the only blacks ever seen were
glimpses of railway porters passing by a couple of times a day on
trans-continental trains.
The KKK there wrapped itself in the Union Jack and Protestantism while
targeting Catholics -- both Roman and Eastern Orthodox -- and all
flavors of "socialist/anarchist" Eastern Europeans. It was more about
loud meetings than illegal action. The Regina-based KKK collapsed in
its second year of organization when its American promoters left town
suddenly, taking with them the tens of thousands of dollars in the
treasury.)
- hm
