Accused recalls dead

Michel Caouette talks about
UFO, abuse, dog neutering

By Andre Ramshaw

Contributing Writer

AN alleged murderer described Tuesday what he
remembers of the day his children were attacked
with an axe.

Michel Andre Caouette appeared in the witness box on the
second day of his defence in B.C. Supreme Court in
Vancouver. The 43-year-old North Vancouver man is charged
with the first-degree murder of his daughter, Danielle, and the
attempted murder of his son, Joshua, on July 13, 1995.

Caouette said he remembers waking early on the morning,
of the atrack, but “after that it’s not really clear.”

Speaking in court Tuesday he said: “I see feet and legs and
boxer shorts and I see the carpet and I see the carpet change
color. I see a hand and I see the hand reaching into the closet
and the next thing I see is I’m standing over Josh and I sce
myself standing over Danielle.”

In a quavering voice Caouette said he then became aware
thar he was standing in his apartment hallway.

“I hear some sounds from the bedroom,” he continued,
“and the children are covered; they’re covered up with blan-
kets and J hear this unusual, very strange sound coming from
them — it sounds like they’re laboring, like something is
wrong with them.

wecgtt away I think, ‘Oh God? and I run to the phone and
call 9-]-1.”

Caouette said he planned to kill himself that day but he had
no intention to kili the children.

Flying saucers, mind-reading and animal cruelty formed the
bizarre backdrop on Monday during testimony.

In a court day shortened by a morning bomb threat,
Caouerte, dressed neatly in a tan suit, took the witness box to
refute claims that he bused his wife. He also described strange
incidents from his pasi. Caouette admitted under questioning by
his lawyer, John White, that while growing up in Quebec he used
to practise ESP (extra sensory perception) with his mother.

He said they wou'd try to read minds and send messages
back and forth, and hv recalled attending a seance at a friend's
house.

Caouette said he became less involved in the practice when
he moved to B.C. in 1978, Speaking in a clear voice — with a
slight Quebecois accent — Caouette also claimed to have had
an encounter with a UFO.

He said it occurred while he was living alone in a trailer in
Mission. One night, he recounted, he was awakened by an
object “hovering above the ground.” It looked like a “blad-
der” sitting in a “big dish” with flashing lights, he said. “Then
T became aware of a presence in front of me in the trailer, but

I didn’t feel afraid or anything, just numb.”

Caouette said his mouth tasted of anesthetic and “I came to
realize that I had seen something.” He told his doctor, who
sent him to counselling. A pair of drawings that Caouetre
made as a result of the incident were
introduced as evidence.

Caouette, at times speaking in a
trembling voice, also related several
disturbing events from his child-
hood. Wiping his eyes, Caouette
said his father physically abused him
and would call him names such as
sissy because he was not keen on
sports and had long hair. “He
would make fun of everything I
did.”

His father once neutered his pet
dog: “I went down to the basement
and there was blood everywhere.”

The youngest of five children,
Caouette said his mother often cried
because his sisters had all moved
out. He was not close to his father,
who was frequently awzy from
home.

White also [ed his client
through the abuse allegations
chronicled last week by his former
wife, Diana Roxburgh. Caouette
admitted being violent with her on
occasion but suggested most of the
acts claimed by Roxburgh since the marriage began coming
apart in 1991 were false or exaggerated. Of the violence, he
said: “I didn’t know where that came from inside me; I
didn’t want to hurt her.” He added: “I never forced myseif
on her sexually.”

Caouette said he began suspecting his wife was having an
affair during the summer of 1991 because, though she was not
a drinker, she was regularly attending bars and nightclubs.
Later, he said, his suspicions deepened. The telephone would
ring and he would hear Roxburgh telling callers that she was
divorced or a single mom.

“I had given up by then,” he explained, “I didn’t want to
argue with her.” He hoped she would “get it out of her system
and come back to me.”

Of the incident that led to his being charged by North
Vancouver RCMP with uttering a death threat against his wifc,
Caouette said it teft him bewildered. “I felt like I had been hit
by a ton of bricks.”

Caouette said the telephone call that led to the May 5,
1995, charge was made by his wife, who told him to call back
later. She was upset, Caouctte said, because he had refused her
request to look after the children the following day.

He said a policeman then came on the line and he later

at murder trial.

Schamborzki has
board’s support

MICHEL Andre Caoutte
took the stand this week

Wednesday, April 9, 1997 — North Shore News — 3

ly day

rushed over to her apartment to investigate. When he arrived,
he said, he was arrested for “stalking.” He was barred from any
contact with Roxburgh and temporarily prevented from visit-
ing the children. “I took it hard,” he told Mr. Justice Allan
Thackray and the jury.

“I didn’t know why I had been arrested and why I
had been cut off from the children all of a sudden.”

Shortly afterwards, he checked into the psychiatric
ward at Lions Gate Hospital. “I just felt like I couldn’t
manage, like I couldn’t function.” Despite the no-con-
tact order, Caouette said, Roxburgh continued to com-
municate with him. Around Father’s Day in 1995 he
had his first visit with the children. “Although I was
with them I felt numb ... I knew it would come to an
end so I didn’t exactly feel good.”

Asked about his drinking habits, Caouette painted
himself as an occasional drinker since he licked an alco-
hol problem in the early 1980s that resulted from on-
the-job injuries he suffered. In September 1994, upset
by his failing marriage, Caouette attempted suicide.

“I started thinking about killing myself,” he said
after a long pause.

Caouette said he ran up and down a hallway to get
his blood pumping, then lay on a bed and slashed his
wrists. He spent five days in LGH and needed about a
dozen stitches. From his testimony, the jury learned
that Caouette had worked as a diamond driller for a
mining company when he first moved to B.C., but was
forced to quit because of back trouble.

He later worked as a furniture finisher for a North
Vancouver company, Canadian Heritage Designs.

For two years, the family lived in Mission where Caouette
worked two jobs, during the week as a woodworker and on
Saturdays at a shake and shingle mill.

Again, back injuries forced him to quit the mill job and
eventually they moved back to the North Shore. Caouette
took a real estate course in 1993-94 but did not write the final
exam. In September 1994, he began working as a salesman at
‘Tip Top Tailors.

The couple, who separated in April 1995, were married in
1979 and had two children. Joshua, 15, suffers from perms-
nent brain damage. Danielle was 11 when she died. The
youngsters had stayed overnight at Caouette’s apartment and
were attacked sometime on the morning of July 13, the day
after Danielle’s birthday. She died a week later in hospital from
massive head injuries.

The Crown believes Caouette smashed the children’s skulls
with an axe in an act of revenge against his ex-wife. Defence
lawyers argue that Caouette had a mental disorder at the time
and was not capable of appreciating his actions.

In his opening remarks, White said he will call psychiatrists
to give evidence of Caouctte’s condition,

“It is the utmost of difficult cases,” he said, adding: “We
have not lost sight of the victims.”

From page
She hopes the division can be healed “with the

" ~ understanding of what our goals are and that may

bé having an integrated health system that serves
-everyone on the North Shore and creating effi-
ciencies.”

She said the board knew Best’s position would
be terminated before Schamborzki announced
Best's dismissal Friday.

Schamborzki said Best was dismissed as a step
toward ti goal of creating an integrated, more
efficient and cost-effective health care delivery
system,

Hutchinson said the board will discuss the
issues, brought up by the doctors. Until then,
she’s not sure what will become of the doctors’
motion.

Hutchinson said she had not heard rumblings
of the doctors’ discontent with the board. She
said a doctors’ representative comes to the board
meetings. The representative, however, does not
sit on the board. “I would have thought if he
didn’t like anything he would have brought items
forward to us,” she said.

Although there is a seat for a doctor on the
board, it hasn’t been filled yet. McTaggart said
thar two months ago, North Shore doctors des-
ignated a doctor to be their representative on the
board. However, the Ministry of Health has still
not appointed Dr. John Maynard.

It’s not just doctors who don’t like Best’s dis-

missal.

Hospital Employees Union chairman Kathie
Anderson said she had a lot of respect for Best.

With the announcement of Best’s firing and
changes at the hospital occurring daily, Anderson
said the staff has no conception of where the hos-
pital is going.

“We feel like a ship without a rudder, cast
adrift under the Lions Gate Bridge. We're going
out with the tide,” she said Monday.

To stabilize the sit-
uation at the hospital,
Schamborzki said
Monday that.
Stewart Madiil will
assume administrative
responsibility for Lions
Gate Hospital.

Madill had been the
vice-president of med-
ical and diagnostic ser-
vices at the hospital
and will now report to
Schamborzki.

Schamborzki also
announced Uli Haag,
formerly the hospita!’s
vice-president of
human resources and
support. services, will
be responsible for
shared services across
the region. He is
expected to develop and implement a plan for
sharing and integrating support services in the
region.

Ginger Brown, a former director of nursing,
will now be senior director for patient care ser-
vices.

Schamborzki told the News Monday that
other health agencies on the North Shore can
expect to lose administrative positions as services
are integrated and management trimmed.

“It may have some impact on support staff,
but at the moment the emphasis is primarily on
administration, on management, on positions
thar don’t have any direct service responsibility,”
she said.

She said the funding picture for many North

* Shore health facilities is grim and there likely

won’r be cnough cash to maintain agencies as
they currently operate.

ALTHOUGH the North Shore Health Board supports board CEO
Inge Schamborzki, local doctors have no confidence in the
regional health board or the CEO who runs Lions Gate Hospital.

The $100-million-a-year hospital budget is
expected to be in the hole $600,000 or more for
the year ended March 31, said Schamborzki.

The deficit leaves the hospital with few
reserves. “We cannot afford any further deficits,”
she said.

She said the termination of Best’s $118,000-
a-year position was an example of administrative
efficiencies that need to be found across the
region.

The extent of the cuts needed at other agen-
cies won’t be known until the health agencies
receive their funding announcements from the
province, likely sometime in the next few weeks,
she said.

The funding situation at the hospital is fur-
ther exacerbated by salary and benefit increases
that total $2 million a year as worker seniority
increases.

ey Business

a Coilins.

& Crossword.

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