The fate of the mother-in-law of the “Granby girl” is now in the hands of the jury.
The jurors began their deliberations Thursday morning, at the end of which they will render their verdict on the two charges facing the woman, that is to say kidnapping and second degree murder of the 7-year-old child.
The judge also opened the door to a verdict of manslaughter, a reduced offense that would carry a lesser sentence than murder.
According to the Crown theory, the 38-year-old accused kidnapped the girl by wrapping her in duct tape on April 29, 2019, resulting in her death. A pile of sticky paper had been found near the body of the girl, according to various witnesses.
The 12 jurors are now in confinement to concentrate on their heavy task. After their day of work at the Trois-Rivières courthouse where the trial took place, they will head to the hotel with their small suitcase.
There were 14 of them to listen to the evidence and the testimony. But a juror was sent home on Wednesday since he had been in contact with someone infected with COVID-19, and another, juror number 2, was drawn Thursday morning and was excluded from the final phase. , because the deliberations do not take place until 12.
The jury’s deliberations are secret: they will not have to explain their decision. No time limit is imposed on them to reach verdicts.
“Do you consider yourself to be kidnapped,” Judge Louis Dionne of the Superior Court who presided over the trial told them around 10:20 am Thursday, before concluding: “good deliberation”.
The magistrate spent the day on Wednesday, as well as part of the morning on Thursday, summarizing the evidence and instructing them on how to properly apply the law related to the facts in this case.
“You can’t take public opinion into account,” he stressed, nor anything you’ve heard or read on social media, in the newspapers, or even at family dinners.
Only the evidence and testimony heard in the courtroom can be assessed. The magistrate ordered jurors to use their “common sense” to determine whether witnesses are telling the truth, while warning them that “appearances are sometimes misleading”.
The task of the jurors is to determine whether the prosecution has proved the accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Any verdict must be unanimous,” recalled the magistrate, who also told them that an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty.