FILICIDE: Ontario: Starved to death by grandparents Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman

March 25 2011An inquest will be held into the death of a five-year-old boy who died of starvation in his grandparents’ Toronto home.
Ontario Chief Coroner Dr. Andrew McCallum says an inquest can be held now that all court proceedings in Jeffrey Baldwin’s death have been completed.
McCallum says the inquest jury will hear evidence regarding the circumstances of the boy’s death on Nov. 30, 2002.
McCallum says the date, location and presiding coroner will be announced at a later date.
Jeffrey weighed only 21 pounds and was covered in sores when he died from complications due to chronic starvation.
Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman were convicted of second-degree murder in Jeffrey’s death and their appeal was rejected earlier this month.
Bottineau and Kidman were convicted in 2006 and sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 22 and 20 years, respectively.
Kidman and Bottineau were designated as legal guardians for Jeffrey and his sister, who had suffered abuse at the hands of their birth parents.
Bottineau and Kidman used the children as a source of income, collecting government support cheques in their names while they confined them to a dark, unheated room that reeked of urine and feces.
Bottineau’s lawyer James Stribopoulos had argued his client’s conviction should be overturned because the trial judge “swept away evidence of Bottineau’s highly incapacitated mental state.”
Justice David Doherty, one of the three judges who heard the appeal, said the trial judge had taken Bottineau’s IQ of 69 — borderline mental retardation — into account when sentencing her to life in prison.
“He finds that she’s of limited intellect, but she’s also a lying, manipulative person,” Doherty said in rejecting the appeal.
The judges also dismissed arguments that Kidman played no part in Jeffrey’s abuse.
“He’s there every day, his room is next to the dungeon that these kids were being tortured in,” Doherty said. “There’s all kinds of evidence that he knocked this kid around.”
Although Jeffrey and his sister lived in squalor, the rest of the house was normal, including the living quarters of other children in the home.
Richard Litkowski, the lawyer for Kidman, had asked court to quash Kidman’s murder conviction and instead send him to prison for manslaughter.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/962145--inquest-called-into-starvation-death-of-jeffrey-baldwin

FILICIDE (multiple): Ontario Grandmother Elva Bottineau appeals murder sentence

 Feb5 2011, Alison Jones

A woman sentenced to life in prison for the "horrific" starvation death of her grandson was not smart enough to be convicted of murder in the case, Ontario's top court is being told.
Elva Bottineau wants the Appeal Court to overturn her second-degree murder conviction in the death of her five-year-old grandson Jeffrey Baldwin.
In material filed ahead of the appeal — slated for March 2 — Bottineau's lawyer Anil Kapoor argues his client didn't realize the starving boy would die.
"Although the facts of this case make the temptation to find Ms. Bottineau guilty of murder overwhelming, there is simply no evidence capable of proving that Ms. Bottineau intended to kill Jeffrey, or that she appreciated he was going to die."
Jeffrey, who weighed just 21 pounds when he died in November 2002, was treated like a dog. He ate out of a bowl with his fingers and often drank from a toilet when he was thirsty, her trial heard.
His cause of death was complications from prolonged starvation.
A pediatrician testified at trial five years ago that Jeffrey had likely been semi-comatose for weeks.
Kapoor notes that an expert in neuropsychology testified at trial that with an IQ of about 69 — borderline mental retardation — Bottineau is less intelligent than about 98 per cent of the population.
Witnesses told court Jeffrey and his sister were confined to an unheated bedroom for as long as 14 hours a day, breathing in the stench of their own urine and feces.
Although the siblings lived in squalor, the rest of the house was normal, including the living quarters of other children in the home, court was told.
Bottineau's longtime common-law partner, Norman Kidman, was also convicted in 2006 of second-degree murder.
He is asking the court to quash his conviction and instead send him to prison for manslaughter.
The couple was supposed to be saviours for Jeffrey and his siblings — who had been abused by their birth parents — but instead the pair used them as a source of income, collecting government support cheques in their names.
By all accounts Bottineau was the primary "caregiver" and set the rules, while Kidman rarely interacted with the children.
Kidman had offered to plead guilty to manslaughter, and that is what he should have been convicted of, not murder, his lawyer Emily Morton argues.
Ontario Superior Court Justice David Watt called the couple "morally bankrupt" when he sentenced Bottineau to serve at least 22 years and Kidman to at least 20 years before they could apply for parole.
In their appeal documents, they argue Watt erred in convicting them.
Bottineau intended to keep Jeffrey alive — "albeit in abusive and horrific circumstances" — because she wanted to collect support money, Kapoor states.
He wants the court to acquit Bottineau outright.
Failing that, he wants the convictions quashed and a new trial ordered, or her parole eligibility reduced.
If the court won't substitute a manslaughter conviction for Kidman, Morton is asking for a new trial or a lower parole eligibility
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/933938--grandmother-not-smart-enough-to-be-convicted-of-jeffrey-baldwin-s-murder-lawyer