Suspect Arrested in Holly Jones
Murder
Fantino calls for "Software Developer" Data Bank
Toronto (AP) - On Friday, June
20th Toronto Police arrested Michael Briere, a 35 year
old software developer, for the horrific murder of 10
year old Holly Jones.
Commenting on the arrest, Police Chief Julian Fantino
made an angry plea to government to set up a DNA bank
for all software developers.
"Because of
restrictions on police powers to deal with these
monsters", Fantino explained, "most people are unaware
that over 1200 software developers live within a
three-kilometer radius of the Jones house."
Local resident
Maria Da Silva, reacting to news of the arrest, stated
"It's frightening. You look around and you realize that
any one of these people could be a software developer.
How am I supposed to protect my children?"
Bill Kort,
however, a neighbour of Mr. Briere, was not surprised
to learn of his neighbour's day job: "He was always a
bit of a loner, he kept to himself. But I always just
had this feeling that he was leaving every morning at
9:00am to go develop software."
Provincial and
federal politicians were quick to react to the arrest by
tabling a bill entitled 'Holly's Law'. The legislation
will increase funding and police authority to monitor
anyone suspected of developing software, granting police
and community groups broad powers to keep tabs on these
terrible people.
As Justice
Minister Martin Cauchon explained, "Just to be cautious
in light of this horrible tragedy, we have also included
laptop designers, electrical technicians and those guys
at your office who you call when you can't make your
computer work. You just know those guys got something
to hide - making you feel stupid just because you can't
save your Word documents to a web-file, even though you
clicked on the help button and... I'm sorry, what was I
saying?"
Civil rights
advocates, including Richard Goulet of the Ontario Civil
Liberties Union, were outraged by the proposed crackdown
on software developers and other technology
professionals. Explained Goulet, "It's only by
preserving the rights of those people who commit even
the most heinous crimes and also happen to develop
software that we can ensure our own rights will be
protected."
Briere pleads guilty to Holly Jones's murder
Globe and Mail Update
Thursday, Jun 17, 2004
The man who pleaded guilty to murdering 10-year-old
Holly Jones at a Toronto court Thursday morning
fulfilled his “dark secret” when he abducted, sexually
assaulted, and dismembered her shortly after viewing and
becoming aroused by child pornography.
Michael Briere, a software developer
who lived only blocks away from Holly's home in the west
end of the city, received an automatic life sentence and
won't be eligible for parole for 25 years.
“A man who commits this type of crime
— you put him away, you put him away for good,” Mr.
Briere told Ontario Superior Court as Holly's mother,
Maria Jones, sat nearby, rocking back and forth in her
seat, and sobbing at times. “I have failed as a human
being.”
Family lawyer Tim Danson told
reporters that Holly's father had chosen not accompany
her mother because “he was unsure whether or not he
would be able to control himself in the courtroom, and,
quite frankly, he was more than certain that when his
eyes would fall upon the murderer of his daughter he
would not be able to control himself.”
As an agreed statement of facts was
read out to the court about how Mr. Briere grabbed Holly
by the neck, sexually assaulted her on his bed, killed
and dismembered the schoolgirl after downloading and
viewing child pornography off of the Internet.
Holly disappeared May 12 of last year
while walking home from a friend's house. Stuffed into
two bags, her body was found near Lake Ontario the next
day.
In his confession to police, Mr.
Briere said he was surprised by how easy it was to
access child pornography.
“The simplicity of getting material
... it's close to mind-boggling,” he says in the 61-page
document. “I have never understood how come the whole
thing wasn't shut down, just because of the nature of it.
You search for the word ‘baby' and it will find stuff
there ... it's easy ... you don't need a degree.”
“I don't know how it is for other
people, but for myself, I would say that, yes, viewing
the material does motivate you to do other things ...
the more I saw it, the more I long for it in my heart.”
Inside, Mr. Briere disrobed both
himself and Holly, sexually assaulted her on his bed —
“I never actually completed the act” — and then
strangled her, all in about an hour, before dismembering
her.
“I always had the fantasy of having
sexual relations with a little girl,” Mr. Briere is
quoted as telling police in the statement. “So I just
got carried away, and I walked outside, and Holly was .
. . I didn't know her, I'd never seen her before . . .
If she wouldn't have been on the street corner, I
probably would have just walked the street and just gone
back home.”
Panicking after he killed her, he
stuffed Holly's body in his fridge. Figuring he couldn't
dispose of it in full, he used a small handsaw from his
toolbox to dismember her.
He then frantically disposed of her
remains over three days: the night of her murder, he
carried her torso in a gym bag on the subway, panicking
when some blood seeped onto the floor, and then dumped
it into the Toronto harbour.
The next day, he rode the subway
again with a travel bag containing more body parts,
dumping them in another part of Lake Ontario.
On the third day after her murder, he
stuffed more remains into garbage bags and put them on
the curb outside his apartment for trash pickup, staying
awake all night until they were gone.
Police matched Mr. Briere's DNA to
the blood found under Holly's fingernails, Mr. Culver
said, adding, “as remorseful as he appeared in court
today, he didn't turn himself in, this wasn't a
situation where he said sorry, until ... the police
nailed him with overwhelming DNA odds.
“Mr. Briere, whatever else motivated
him, was spurred on by images of child pornography
downloaded from the Internet.
“If this isn't a case that brings
home to society, to government, to legislatures and to
those involved in the prosecution and resolution of
child pornography cases that this cancer on our society
must be stopped and stamped out, then I can't think of
one.”
Mr. Danson read a statement written
by Holly's parents when Maria Jones was too distraught
to read it herself.
“This cannot be the end. The truth is
that Holly's spirit, her compassion, her gentleness, her
sense of humour and her love of life will never die,” he
said.
He called on legislators to
strengthen Canada's child pornography laws.
“While some argue that child
pornography is constitutionally protected free speech,
Parliament must tighten up its child-pornography
legislation by giving full constitutional weight to
children's equality and privacy rights by adopting zero-tolerance
for child pornography,” he said.
Maria Jones spoke briefly to thank
the public for its support and to add, “I know Holly
will make a difference,” she said.
Mr. Briere was arrested June 20th and
has been in prison since, under protective custody. On
Thursday, he was escorted in court under heightened
security. He was wearing a suit, clean-shaven and with
his black hair pulled back.
He told Ontario Superior Court Judge
David Watt that he had decided to plead guilty to the
crime.
“Your crime profoundly shocked this
community and city and it is a community that is no
longer easily shocked by crimes of violence,” Judge Watt
told Mr. Briere, “A random abduction on a quiet city
street, a sexual assault, a murder, dismemberment, a
young active life, like others full of promise, snuffed
out.
“There seems no bottom in the
depravity pool nor any limits to the vulnerability of
our children.”
Police visited Holly's parents in
“Holly's Garden” before Thursday's court appearance to
help prepare them for the evidence they would hear.
