An uneventful college student struggling with an attachment disorder admitted to having acted out of pure loyalty by helping her boyfriend transport the body of a sixty-year-old whom he had just killed and dismembered. Zoé Boutin now faces a year of incarceration in the community for insulting a corpse.
The young woman, aged 18 at the time of the murder, had been accused of complicity after the fact in the murder of Luc Lafontaine, found dead in Saint-Basile-le-Grand, in Montérégie in the fall of 2022.
Remember that Nicolas Côté, 20, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, notably for killing the 64-year-old man. The killer seemed to want to avenge a friend who was allegedly sexually assaulted by the victim, according to facts reported last March. Nicolas Côté and Zoé Boutin tried to get rid of the body.
Mme Boutin finally pleaded guilty last January to charges of indignity to a corpse in connection with this sordid case.
She admitted to having wanted to help and protect her boyfriend at the time, Nicolas Côté. “At that time, I was very attached to him,” she explained Friday before Judge Serge Délisle at the Longueuil courthouse.
At one point there was a voice in my head that said, “You’ve really got yourself into trouble.”
Zoé Boutin, in her testimony on Friday
Zoé Boutin acted “out of loyalty” by helping her lover get rid of the dismembered body of Luc Lafontaine, according to the portrait drawn up by prosecutor Me Sylvie Villeneuve during observations on the sentence.
A “huge” attachment disorder
Zoé Boutin was arrested by the police and detained for four days shortly after the events. According to the young accomplice, this period when she had difficulty sleeping made her think about the events.
She claims to have felt a certain emotional pressure to help Nicolas Côté, whom she considered her lover for several months. The latter saw her more as “an acquaintance,” she confirmed in the courtroom.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Zoé Boutin, at the courthouse on Friday
“I have a huge attachment disorder. I want to help everyone, no matter what, [façon]due to the lack of affection I feel,” she explained to the judge through a few sobs.
“It destroys me to have contributed to such great evil. I have a lot of remorse. »
Sordid murder
The authorities reported the disappearance of the victim in his sixties on October 23, 2022. The same evening, around 11 p.m., Nicolas Côté asked Zoé Boutin to move bags of garbage into a container. The young girl is unaware that the bags contain the body of the deceased, Luc Lafontaine.
Mme Boutin then takes his friend to the police station at the young man’s request.
She asks him for more explanations when she comes back to get him. It was at this time that she learned what the bags contained and the context of the murder.
The next day, he finds her at CEGEP and talks about the evening, explaining that they have to move the bags a second time.
According to the facts admitted in court, she told him that she would keep the secret “out of loyalty.” » “I’ll help you, but I’m not going to be there for the rest,” she told the young murderer.
They go to get a boat and she helps him carry the bags full of the corpse, this time knowing what they are hiding. “I couldn’t explain why I didn’t get out of there. It’s like I’m going with the flow. I was in denial,” the young woman explained on Friday.
The prosecution is seeking a sentence of one year of incarceration served in the community with community service and curfew.
The prosecutor Me Sylvie Villeneuve notably mentioned a positive pre-sentence report. She described an impressionable young woman “with things to work on,” with excellent potential for rehabilitation.
She recalled that despite her initial desire to protect her lover, she ended up collaborating with the authorities. “It made it possible to incriminate the murderer. »
M’s lawyerme Boutin, Me Martin Latour suggested a conditional discharge to the judge.
“It’s quite insidious, the way she’s involved in this,” the criminalist explained, reiterating that she first transported a body without knowing it.
His client suffers from a profound attachment disorder, he stressed to the judge. The latter still mentioned the fact that Zoé Boutin had time to think during the night and that she was caught in the act while trying to hide the body near the lake.
The judge will announce the date of his decision on September 6.