Disgraced Col. Russell Williams wrote a letter to the mother of one of his murder victims, saying that her daughter loved her very much because she "told me so again and again," a court heard on Wednesday.
The letter was presented in a Belleville, Ont. courtroom, during Williams's sentencing hearing for a string of fetish break-ins, two sexual assaults and two murders.
In the letter to the mother of Jessica Lloyd, who he confessed to sexually assaulting and killing last January, Williams said Lloyd had no idea he was going to kill her because "she believed she was going home."
In another letter, the former commander of CFB Trenton apologized to his wife for "having hurt you like this," and asked her to take care of their cat, Rosie. He signed off the letter with, "I love you, Russ."
On Tuesday, Williams was formally convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, the sexual assault of two other victims and 82 fetish break-ins during which he stole thousands of articles of women's and girls' underwear.
On Wednesday afternoon, friends and family members of the victims, as well as women who had personal items stolen during the break-ins, spoke in court about how they have been hurt by Williams's crimes.
Justice Robert Scott, who is presiding over the proceedings, instructed the media to only use the first names of those giving victim-impact statements.
A friend named Lisa said Lloyd had looked forward to being a wife and mother, and said her friend's death has "completely diminished" her faith in God.
"How could he create such a monster? The very person whose job it was to protect my country was terrorizing my community," Lisa said while holding a photograph of Lloyd.
Earlier Wednesday, the court viewed an edited version of the video of Williams's cold and methodical confession to police.
Several hours into the interview, which took place after police picked him up in connection to the murders of Lloyd and Comeau, Williams seemed to realize he was caught.
"I guess it's wide open now. What do you want to know?" he asks investigators.
In a matter-of-fact manner, Williams then detailed the gruesome murder of Lloyd, a 27-year-old woman who worked at a bus company in Napanee.
He described breaking into her home and attacking her in her bed.
"I raped her," Williams said in the video.
"A rape can mean a lot of things. What took place?" the investigator countered.
Williams then went on to describe in painstaking detail the various ways he assaulted Lloyd, how he threatened her and placed zip ties around her neck to control her. He also described to police how he made Lloyd model underwear, and photographed her as she did so.
Williams said he then took her to Tweed, where he lived. The day-and-a-half-long nightmare continued with numerous rapes, photo sessions and eventually with Lloyd suffering seizures, begging for her life.
Williams, after telling Lloyd he was taking her to the hospital, finally seemed to tire of the cruel game.
"And as we were walking ... I hit her on the back of the head," he told investigators in the video, in which he often referred to her by her first name as though they were friends.
"I was surprised that her skull gave way. She was immediately unconscious and I strangled her."
After that Williams explained that he hid Lloyd's body in his garage and went to work because he was flying a military plane to California early the next day. He later returned to get rid of her body and clean up the mess.
Cpl. Marie-France Comeau
In the video shown to the courtroom, Williams also described the murder of Comeau, pronouncing her name with the correct French accent.
He admitted breaking into Comeau's home and hiding in her basement, waiting for her to fall asleep, and how she came down to the basement in search of her cat.
"So when she spotted me I had the same flashlight (and) subdued her, brought her upstairs and, uh, strangled her, well more suffocated her with some tape," he said.
Later in the video he admitted raping and photographing Comeau.
Williams, who was commander of the CFB Trenton airbase at the time of the murders, explained in the video that he used duct tape to cover Comeau's mouth and nose, until she suffocated.
"I had thought about strangling her earlier...it was a short-lived attempt because she struggled quite a bit. So I decided I had to suffocate her," he said.
The reason he murdered her, he said, was that there was an obvious link to an assault he had committed on a woman who lived near him in Tweed.
When asked by investigators whether he would have continued to commit murders and sexual assaults if he hadn't been caught, Williams was ambiguous.
"I was hoping not. I can't answer that question," he said.
Concern for wife, Canadian Forces
Earlier in the video, after being told his two houses were being searched, Williams told his interrogators his main concern was the effect it would have on his wife and the Canadian Forces.
"I'm struggling with how upset my wife is right now," Williams said. "I'm concerned that they are tearing apart my wife's brand new home."
It was a road-side check that brought Williams to the attention of investigators after they matched his tire tread to one found near Lloyd's home. They quickly connected him also to Comeau's murder.
In the video he asks if he can assume that officers will be discreet, and says he is concerned about "the impact this is going to have on the Canadian Forces."
Statement of facts
Over the first two days of his sentencing hearing, the prosecution meticulously went through all of the charges against Williams, reading the agreed statement of facts and showing photos -- some taken by Williams himself and others taken by forensic investigators.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the judge had enough evidence to register a formal conviction against Williams on first-degree murder, sexual assault and break and enter and theft charges. He has pleaded guilty to all the charges against him.
Once the victim impact statements were completed, court adjourned for the day. The judge is expected to deliver his sentence on Thursday.
