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Cody Legebokoff

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Oral Reasons for Sentence

The Trial of Cody Legebokoff is a 2014 criminal case in the British Columbia Supreme Court that convicted Cody Alan Legebekoff (born c. 1990) of murdering three women and a teenage girl between 2009 and 2010 in or near the City of Prince George, British Columbia. The trial of one of Canada's youngest serial killers drew national attention.

2010 Arrest

On November 27, 2010 a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer observed Legebokoff pull his truck onto British Columbia Highway 27 from a remote logging road. According to a case report prepared by the officer, he suspected the vehicle of speeding and signaled for it to pull over. After being joined by a second officer and approaching the vehicle, the officers say they noticed Legebokoff had blood smears on his face and chin, blood on his legs and saw a pool of blood on the driver's mat.

Searching the pickup truck, the officers claim they discovered a multi-tool and a wrench covered in blood, as well as a monkey backpack and a wallet containing a children's hospital card with the name of Loren Leslie on it. When questioned about the blood upon his person, Legebokoff purportedly stated that he was poaching and had clubbed a deer to death because "I’m a redneck, that’s what we do for fun."

The officers arrested Legebokoff under the Canada Wildlife Act and called for a conservation officer. The conservation officer retraced the tire tracks of Legebokoff's vehicle. According to police, the tracks led to the body of Loren Donn Leslie. After his arrest in connection with the death of Leslie, he was linked by DNA to the deaths of Jill Stacey Stuchenko, Cynthia Frances Maas and Natasha Lynn Montgomery.

Perpetrator

Cody Legebokoff is a Canadian citizen who was raised in Fort St. James, a district municipality in rural British Columbia. He has been described by friends and family members as a popular young man who competed in ice hockey and showed no propensity for violence. Though Legebokoff had a minor criminal record, he was not "on the radar" of local police.

After graduating Fort St. James Secondary School, Legebokoff lived briefly in Lethbridge, before moving to Prince George. There, he shared an apartment with three close female friends and worked as a mechanic at a Ford dealership. In his spare time Legebokoff frequented the Canadian social-networking site Nexopia, using the handle "1CountryBoy."

Victims

In addition to Leslie, police allege Legebokoff is responsible for the murders of:

Jill Stacey Stuchenko,
Cynthia Frances Maas and
Natasha Lynn Montgomery.

Jill Stuchenko, 35 year old mother of five, was last seen on October 9, 2009 and found dead four days later in a gravel pit on the outskirts of Prince George, British Columbia.

Cynthia Maas, 35, was last seen September 10, 2010 and her body was found in a Prince George park the following month. Maas, died of blunt-force trauma to the head and penetrating wounds. She had a hole in her shoulder blade, a broken jaw and cheekbone, and injuries to her neck consistent with someone stomping on it.

Natasha Montgomery, 23, was last seen August 31 or early September 1, 2010. Her body has never been found but her DNA was later found in samples taken in Legebokoff's apartment.

The Crown has said Stuchenko, Maas, and Montgomery had worked in the sex trade and that Legebokoff was addicted to cocaine and used sex workers to get him the drug.

Loren Leslie, 15, is something of an outlier, as she was far younger than the other victims and allegedly met Mr. Legebokoff online at the website Nexopia. Leslie was legally blind, having one completely blind eye and only 50% vision in the other.

Trial proceedings

Legebokoff's trial on four counts of murder was originally scheduled to began in September 2013 but was delayed a month until October and then again until June 2014. Legebokoff plead not guilty to all four counts of murder. The judge and 12 jurors heard testimony from 93 Crown witnesses and the defendant.

Legebokoff testified during the trial that he was "involved" in three of the deaths but claimed that he did not actually commit the killings. He alleged that a drug dealer and two accomplices, whom he would only name as "X, Y and Z", were the actual murderers. Prosecutors did not accept this attempt to plead guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder.

Verdict

Legebokoff was convicted on four counts of first-degree murder on September 11, 2014.

Sentencing

On September 16, 2014, Legebokoff was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years (November 2035). B.C. Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett also added him to the national sex offender registry given the sexual assaults committed as part of the murders and Legebokoff's apparent degradation of the victims' bodies. "He lacks any shred of empathy or remorse," Parrett said of the killer. "He should never be allowed to walk among us again."

Wikipedia.org

 

Blatchford: B.C. Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett reveals humanity in Cody Legebokoff murder trial

By Christie Blatchford, Postmedia News - Canada.com

September 18, 2014

The Sunday I arrived in Prince George, B.C., for the first time, I went out for a bit of a recce after unpacking. I always do this when I’m on the road, mostly to scope out running routes.

It was a nice June day.

What I saw in the downtown, many buildings one-storey, social-service storefronts aimed squarely at a First Nations clientele, left me filled with despair.

A young woman who appeared to be inebriated was begging a lift from an older man in a pickup truck. A few blocks away, at the only mall in the city centre, I saw a couple of 20- or 30-somethings, women, with the telltale melted faces of the crystal meth user.

All of this was happening within a stone’s throw of the notorious Highway of Tears, Highway 16, which runs from Prince George to Prince Rupert 800 klicks away.

It’s near or off this highway where so many missing and murdered aboriginal girls and women were last seen alive.

Officially, the RCMP in British Columbia are probing 18 such murders or disappearances. But nationally, as the RCMP revealed last May, police across Canada recorded 1,181 incidents of aboriginal female murders and unresolved disappearances between 1980 and 2012.

Prince George is where B.C. Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett lives; it’s also where he practised law with a famous firm and where he has long served as the resident judge.

The courthouse is right downtown, and the sights I saw that day would also smack him in the face.

This brings me to the Cody Legebokoff trial, which ended Tuesday when Parrett delivered his reasons for sentence.

The 24-year-old was convicted Sept. 11 by a jury of four counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Jill Stuchenko, Natasha Montgomery, Cynthia Maas and the partially blind 15-year-old Loren Leslie.

I was not there for sentencing. Though the penalty for first-degree murder is automatic — life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years — there were some findings the judge had to make, and I was curious what he might say.

He’s a formidable character who runs a tight ship and has a delightfully low tolerance for BS. I thought he was smart and humane. His judgment offers evidence of both.

He treated the murdered women, and their many relatives who were in court, with respect but not delicacy.

About each he included humanizing details in “a process that can sometimes lose perspective through the use of labels which sometimes mask and obscure the people behind those labels.”

Stuchenko, Montgomery and Maas were all drug users who sometimes worked in the sex trade.

But Stuchenko, who was 35, was also a mother of six, and, as the judge wrote, in October of 2009, “as many Canadians were enjoying their Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends, she was dead or dying.”

Montgomery, who was 23 when she disappeared, had just been released from jail, where she had kept close pictures of her two youngsters.

Maas, who was 35 when she died in September of 2010, “was a mother of a little girl.”

Leslie, who suffered multiple injuries to her hands as she fought off Legebokoff, was no less a target, in her case by her age and trusting nature. “Nothing sexual, right,” she told Legebokoff shortly before she agreed to meet him for the first time; his purpose, as Parrett said, was “purely sexual.”

He concluded that all four murders were committed during the course of a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. Thus, he found Legebokoff was a sex offender and would be registered as such for life.

Then Parrett took judicial notice of the fact that the budget of the RCMP Highway of Tears task force has been slashed in the past two years by 84 per cent.

The discovery of Canada’s youngest serial killer came when a smart young RCMP constable named Aaron Kehler stopped Legebokoff’s truck as it roared onto a highway, and then noticed blood on his shorts and legs.

Legebokoff claimed the blood was from a deer he’d poached, but the young officer was suspicious, dispatched a conservation officer to the bush, and there, he found not the body of a deer, but of Leslie.

What followed, Parrett said, was “good sound police work” linking the other three killings to Legebokoff.

“But make no mistake,” the judge said, “it was luck that began these events.”

Without Const. Kehler and that luck, the judge said, “the grief and horrors we heard from the families may well have been simply a precursor…” Cody Legebokoff was just 20 when he was stopped, and he may have been just getting started.

“I know that First Nations people … are disproportionately represented in this roll call of misery,” Parrett said.

“But as the facts of this trial so vividly demonstrate, this is not just a First Nations issue. It is a sociological issue, one that arises from, among other things, a high-risk lifestyle. It is something which must be dealt with.

“The victims of this case represent two members of First Nations descent and two of Caucasian background. … We simply must do better.”

The “sociological” comment was widely seen as a rebuke to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recent comment that a national inquiry into the murdered and missing women isn’t necessary because this is a crime-and-policing problem. And maybe it was that.

But I also think it was the frank measure of a man who despite all the years he has spent in his town, has not grown deaf, blind or insensate to the people and pain he sees there.

 

Cody Legebokoff sentenced to life on 4 counts of 1st-degree murder

Legebokoff is one of Canada's youngest serial killers

CBC.ca

September 16, 2014

A B.C. Supreme Court justice in Prince George, B.C., has sentenced Cody Alan Legebokoff to life in prison with no parole for 25 years on four counts of first-degree murder.

The 24-year-old was convicted in the slayings of Loren Donn Leslie, Jill Stacey Stuchenko, Cynthia Frances Maas and Natasha Lynn Montgomery, who died in 2009 and 2010.

The courtroom was packed for the sentencing hearing Tuesday as the Crown asked the serial killer to be placed on the National Sex Offender Registry.

During sentencing, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett pointed out the "faint hope clause" to Legebokoff, which could allow him to apply for parole after serving 15 years in prison.

The provision was repealed in 2011 for multiple murders, but the murders in this case were committed before the law was changed.

"I just bit my lip, as you can see," was the reaction to the comments about parole from Doug Leslie, the father of 15-year-old Loren Leslie.

"I'm sure he's not ever going to see daylight, but just the way everything was put, the system still seems to lean to the criminal, you know?" said Leslie, who was seen with a bruised lip while standing outside the court.

Parrett told the court this case was one of his most difficult tasks, given the horrendous nature of the crime.

An emotional Parrett , his voice cracking during sentencing, had to pause and reach for a glass of water before continuing. The B.C. Supreme Court justice said there was no reasonable doubt as to who had murdered the victims — three women and one girl.

Referencing Legebokoff's explanation that other men, identified only as X, Y and Z, committed the actual murders, Parrett told the court, "Nothing is ever his fault. There is no evidence."

'A mistake to limit the seriousness of this issue'

Parrett also weighed in on calls for a national inquiry into the issue of missing and murdered women that would include both aboriginal and non-aboriginal victims. He pointed out that the budget for the RCMP's Highway of Tears investigation — looking into 18 murdered and missing women and girls — has been reduced by 84 per cent.

"It is a mistake to limit the seriousness of this issue," said Parrett.

Two of Legebokoff’s victims, Maas and Montgomery, were from First Nations families.

A spokesman for B.C.'s Criminal Justice Branch, said the case has been a long and challenging one for family members.

Jill​ Stuchenko was 35 when she became Legebokoff's first victim. The mother of five was found dead in a gravel pit off Otway Road, on the outskirts of Prince George, in 2009.

Crown counsel said that Stuchenko died from blunt force trauma to her head.

Natasha Montgomery, 23, originally from Quesnel, was reported missing in August 2010. Her body has not been found, but Crown counsel said in court that several items, including shirts, shorts, bedsheets, a comforter and an axe found in Legebokoff`s apartment tested positive for her DNA.

Cynthia Maas, 35, went missing in September 2010. Her remains were found in L.C. Gunn Park, in a remote area of Prince George, the following month.

Arrest came after 15-year-old killed

Police only cracked those cases after the death of a 15-year-old girl from Fraser Lake who had met Legebokoff online.

The teen, Loren Leslie, was found dead on a remote logging road just off Highway 27 near Vanderhoof, B.C., in November 2010.

Legebokoff was arrested after an RCMP officer stopped him after he was spotted turning onto the highway from that unused logging road. The officer reported seeing a blood smear on Legebokoff's face and legs, and there was a pool of blood in the truck.

A conservation officer, suspecting poaching, went up the logging road to investigate and found Leslie's body.

Investigators determined she had died only several hours before Legebokoff had been arrested.

Legebokoff had pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree murder in B.C. Supreme Court, testifying that he was present at the deaths of the three women and the teenage girl, but that he did not commit the murders.

That plea was not accepted by the court.

Legebokoff, who was 19 when the first murder took place, is among Canada's youngest serial killers but is not the youngest on record.

In 1957, 17-year-old Peter Woodcock was imprisoned for the rape and murder of three young children in Toronto.

He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his life behind bars, but still managed to kill another inmate before his own death in 2010.

 

Cody Legebokoff guilty of 4 counts of 1st degree murder

Convictions mark Legebokoff as one of Canada's youngest serial killers

By Rhiannon Coppin, CBC News

September 11, 2014

A jury in Prince George, B.C., has found Cody Alan Legebokoff guilty on four counts of first-degree murder.

The 24-year-old was charged in the slayings of Loren Donn Leslie, Jill Stacey Stuchenko, Cynthia Frances Maas and Natasha Lynn Montgomery, who died in 2009 and 2010.

Neil MacKenzie, a spokesman for B.C.'s Criminal Justice Branch, said it has been a long and challenging process for family members.

"We understand that the loss that they've suffered, and that the victims of the crimes include the surviving family members and friends of the women and young woman who lost their lives," he said.

The victims were daughters, friends, and some were sisters and mothers, MacKenzie added.

Jill​ Stuchenko was 35 when she became Legebokoff's first victim. The mother of five was found dead in a gravel pit off Otway Road, on the outskirts of Prince George, in 2009.

Crown counsel said that Stuchenko died from blunt force trauma to her head.

Stuchenko's family members did not speak outside the courthouse following the reading of the verdict, but a crowd of family members and supporters of all four families did assemble to hear statements.

Body of 2nd victim never found

Natasha Montgomery, 23, originally from Quesnel, was reported missing in August 2010. Her body has not been found, but Crown counsel said in court that several items, including shirts, shorts, bedsheets, a comforter and an axe found in Legebokoff`s apartment tested positive for her DNA.

Robert Donovan, Montgomery's grandfather, said he thought he could handle hearing about his granddaughter's death in court, but he was wrong.

"I couldn't take it … when they were playing the testimony … about how he murdered her, about all that he'd done to her, I just broke down," he told reporters outside the courthouse after Thursday's verdict. "I couldn't take it. I thought I was a big tough guy, but big tough guys fall apart too."

"It was a relief," Marlene Donovan, Montgomery's step-grandmother said of hearing the verdict. But the story is far from over for her extended family, she said.

"We will have satisfaction when he lets us know where Natasha is and gives [her] back to LuAnn," she said. "She needs her daughter back."

Mother LuAnn Montgomery spoke briefly following the verdict.

"It's not over for me. I still don't have Natasha back, and I want to remind the public to keep an eye out for her remains," she said.

Sister thanks First Nations' support

Cynthia Maas, 35, went missing in September 2010. Her remains were found in L.C. Gunn Park, in a remote area of Prince George, the following month.

Her sister, Judy Maas, was present for the reading of the verdict against Legebokoff, and she spoke publicly outside the courthouse afterward.

"This verdict is bittersweet," she said. "All we wanted in this system was justice. Even though my sister is gone and we will never get her back through this we will have a sense of justice that it was first degree-murder and we are really happy with that."

Maas thanked the Carrier Sekani First Nation members and the drummers who came out to the courthouse when news broke that the jury was returning with a verdict.

"The womens' warrior song that they sang was incredibly powerful," she said.

The high-profile trial was not only difficult for the families but also emotional for the community, which lives with constant reminders of the number of unsolved murders and disappearances of women — many of them vulnerable women, and many of them aboriginal ​women — in northern British Columbia.

Maas says that although her sister and Legebokoff's two adult victims were sex trade workers, that fact should not be used to label or somehow dismiss them.

"They weren't 'just' a drug addict and they weren't 'just' a sex trade worker. They were loved. They're missed," she said.

Arrest came after killing 15-year-old

Police only cracked those cases after the death of a 15-year-old girl from Fraser Lake who had met Legebokoff online.

Loren Leslie, 15, was found dead on a remote logging road just off Highway 27 near Vanderhoof, B.C., in November 2010.

Legebokoff was arrested after an RCMP officer stopped him after he was spotted turning onto the highway from that unused logging road. The officer reported seeing a blood smear on Legebokoff's face and legs, and there was a pool of blood in the truck.

A conservation officer, suspecting poaching, went up the logging road to investigate and found Leslie's body.

Investigators determined she had died only several hours before Legebokoff had been arrested.

Legebokoff had pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree murder in B.C. Supreme Court, testifying that he was present at the deaths of the three women and the teenage girl, but that he did not commit the murders.

That plea was not accepted by the court.

After Thursday's convictions, Doug Leslie, Loren's father, thanked the diligent RCMP officer who stopped Legebokoff that night and allowed his daughter's body to be found.

He said he wasn't offended in court when Legebokoff put forward the theory that Leslie had been trying to kill herself.

"How can you be offended with something that's not real?" Leslie said.

A sentencing hearing has yet to take place, but a finding of guilt on a charge of first-degree murder in Canada carries an automatic life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

Legebokoff, who was 19 when the first murder took place, is not Canada's youngest serial killer.

In 1957 17-year-old Peter Woodcock was imprisoned for the rape and murder of three young children in Toronto.

He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his life behind bars, but still managed to kill another inmate before his own death in 2010.

 

A timeline of events in the serial-murder case against Cody Legebokoff

Citizen staff & CP / Prince George Citizen / The Canadian Press

September 11, 2014

Significant dates in the serial-murder case against Cody Legebokoff, 24, who was convicted Thursday of four counts of first-degree murder.

Oct. 9, 2009: Jill Stuchenko, 35, is last seen in Prince George, B.C.

Oct. 26: Stuchenko's body is found half buried in a gravel pit in the outskirts of the city.

Aug. 31 or Sept. 1, 2010: Natasha Montgomery, 23, is last seen leaving a friend's house in Prince George. Her body is never found.

Sept. 10: Cynthia Maas, 35, is last seen.

Oct. 9: Maas' body is found in a wooded park.

Nov. 27, 2010: An RCMP officer spots Legebokoff's truck speeding out of a remote logging road near Vanderhoof, B.C., and pulls him over. Initially, Legebokoff, whose clothing was stained with blood, claimed he had been poaching deer, but a conservation officer later finds the body of 15-year-old Loren Leslie along the same road Legebokoff was spotted driving out of. Legebokoff is charged with one count of first-degree murder.

Oct. 17, 2011: Legebokoff is charged with three more counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Stuchenko, Maas and Montgomery.

June 2, 2014: Legebokoff's trial begins in front of a jury in Prince George.

Aug. 1: The Crown finishes its case after calling 93 witnesses.

Aug. 26: Legebokoff takes the stand in his own defence. He tells the jury he was present when the three women died, but he said three other people, who he refused to name, were also involved and that he didn't personally carry out the killings. He says Leslie "flipped out" and killed herself with a pipe wrench and a knife.

Sept. 2: During closing arguments, Legebokoff's defence lawyer asks the jury to convict his client of four counts of second-degree murder instead of first-degree murder.

Sept. 10: The jury retires to consider its verdict.

Sept. 11: Legebokoff is convicted of four counts of first-degree murder.

 

Cody Legebokoff admits being present at deaths of women

Accused killer claims others killed Jill Stuchenko, Cynthia Maas and Natasha Montgomery

CBC News

August 26, 2014

A B.C. man charged with murdering four women says he was present at the deaths of all the women he is accused of killing.

Cody Legebokoff told a B.C. Supreme Court jury in Prince George Tuesday that he was with Loren Leslie, 15, when she died. He testified to hitting her, but claimed he did so only after she injured herself.

He told the jury other, unnamed men killed Jill Stacey Stuchenko, 35, Cynthia Frances Maas, 35 and Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 23.

"At that time, I didn't expect to be what I actually did was murder," Legebokoff testified.

"But now, sitting here charged with it, I don't feel very good about it."

Charged with 1st-degree murder

Legebokoff is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Stuchenko, Maas, Leslie and Montgomery. The women died in 2009 and 2010.

Legebokoff identified the other men only as X and Y and Z. He said he wouldn't name them because he didn't want to be labelled a "rat" if he was sent to prison.

The 24-year-old told the jury he had sex with Stuchenko at his apartment. He claimed X told him she had to die and hit her with a pipe. He said X also ordered Montgomery's death. He testified that Z pulled out a weapon and X then killed her.

Legebokoff described watching X strike Maas in his apartment. He told the jury X hit her in the head with an "object," knocking her out. He claims he and Y then put Maas into his truck and drove her to a park.

"He opened the door and he pulled her out. She just fell to the ground," Legebokoff said.

"That was when he had said she was still alive."

Legebokoff claimed he then pulled a pickaroon from his truck and handed the spiked, log-handling tool to Y. He told the jury he heard Y hit her three or four times.

"I didn't feel very good about what was going on, or how I got myself into this mess."

Body found in park

Maas's body was found in a park on the outskirts of Prince George, naked from the waist down. Earlier in the trial, Crown counsel Joseph Temple told the jurors both she and Stuchenko suffered blunt force trauma to their heads as well as other wounds.

Montgomery's body was never found. However, Temple said several items, including shirts, shorts, bedsheets, a comforter and an axe found in Legebokoff`s apartment tested positive for her DNA.

All three older women were known to have worked in the sex trade.

Temple told the jury Legebokoff met Leslie in November 2010 after exchanging text messages and social media conversations on Nexopia and arranging to buy alcohol. Legebokoff told the jury Tuesday the two had sex and that Leslie then picked up a pipe from his truck and started striking herself.

He claimed she got out of his truck and then injured herself with a knife. Legebokoff said he then hit her several times over the head.

Leslie's body was found partially buried near a gravel pit off a bush road near Vanderhoof, B.C.

The trial is expected to last six to eight months.

 

Court hears Legebokoff on tape

By Mark Nielsen / Prince George Citizen

July 30, 2014

Confronted by a tag team of two RCMP officers as well as a tearful girlfriend, Cody Allan Legebokoff admitted to hitting Loren Donn Leslie "twice at the max" with a pipe wrench but maintained he did not kill the girl, the court heard Tuesday.

Legebokoff's statement was given in a video recorded interview he gave police two days after he was arrested for the murder of Loren Donn Leslie, a legally blind 15-year-old girl whose body was found in an isolated spot off Highway 27 between Vanderhoof and Fort St. James.

After first claiming he had stumbled across Leslie's body while out exploring the area, Legebokoff eventually admitted to police he knew the girl, saying they decided to meet in person after conversing through a social networking website for a couple of weeks.

Already planning to drive to Fort St. James to see his grandfather and mother, Legebokoff said he drove his pickup truck to Vanderhoof where he rendezvoused with Leslie at a school. He said they drank some of the alcohol he had bought, had sex, and then drove towards Fort St. James, where Leslie said she knew some people.

Along the way, they decided to take a detour, have sex once again, and go four-wheeling but that's where Leslie "went psycho," Legebokoff told a member of the B.C. RCMP's interview team as they sat in an interview room at the Vanderhoof RCMP detachment.

He said Leslie started going on about wanting to kill herself and that she hated her mother. It then escalated to Leslie hitting herself with a pipe wrench that had been sitting on the floor of his truck and stabbing herself in her neck, Legebokoff told police.

"I was like 'what the hell are you doing?'" Legebokoff said.

He said Leslie was soon out of the truck and down in the snow with stab wounds to her neck. Legebokoff said he was too stunned to give first aid, but did drag her about 15 feet before returning to his truck and taking off.

Legebokoff initially denied having sex with Leslie but changed that aspect of the story when told she was found with her shoes, pants and underwear off.

Matters reached a peak on the evening of Nov. 29, 2010 when Legebokoff's girlfriend at the time, Amy Voell, appeared at the detachment. With Sgt. Paul Dadwal looking on, the two gave each other a long embrace followed by Legebokoff telling her that he did not kill Leslie. Legebokoff continued to go over the story with a tearful and sobbing Voell while also asking for her forgiveness.

"I just want you to believe me," Legebokoff told her at one point.

In an apparent attempt at the good-cop, bad-cop ploy, Cpl. Greg Yanicki, also of the B.C. RCMP interview team, confronted Legebokoff at one point saying his story is ridiculous.

A pathologist had determined both sets of injuries Leslie suffered were fatal, Yanicki told Legebokoff. "You couldn't do both to yourself, you could do either one, but you couldn't do both," Yanicki said.

Later, Dadwal also began to press Legebokoff but also told him he thought he panicked and did something he normally would not have done.

"You're not a psycho, you're not a monster," Dadwal said. "She did something and you reacted."

Then, with Voell still in the room, Dadwal showed Legebokoff a photo of Leslie.

"That, Cody, is not you," Dadwal said.

Legebokoff continued to say he did not hit her with the wrench.

"You're not a bad guy, you had a good childhood, you're a normal person," Dadwal countered and urged Legebokoff to tell the truth.

Finally, Legebokoff said he hit Leslie once or twice while she was lying on the ground.

He then reluctantly agreed to give a summary of what he said happened while continuing to repeat he did not kill Leslie.

Legebokoff was also asked about Cynthia Frances Maas, 35 whose body was found in L.C. Gunn Park on Oct. 9, 2010, roughly seven weeks before his arrest. Legebokoff denied any knowledge of Maas when asked if he might have had sex with the woman.

Legebokoff is also accused of murder in the deaths of Jill Stacey Stuchenko, 35, and Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 23. Stuchenko's body was found Oct. 20, 2009 in a gravel pit off Foothills Boulevard and Montgomery went missing in September 2010 and has never been found.

 

Blood in apartment linked to missing woman: expert witness

By Mark Nielsen / Prince George Citizen

July 23, 2014

Blood from a woman who has been missing for nearly four years and is presumed dead was found throughout the apartment of Cody Allan Legebokoff, including on an alleged murder weapon, an expert witness testified Wednesday.

Natasha Lynn Montogomery's name was repeatedly brought up as Jason Solinski, who conducts DNA analysis at an RCMP forensics laboratory in Edmonton, took the court through the findings he gleaned from the many samples police collected from the scene.

Montgomery, who was 23 when she went missing, has not been seen since early September 2010, a few weeks after she was released from Prince George Regional Correctional Centre. Crown prosecutors are alleging Legebokoff murdered Montgomery as well as two other women and a teenage girl.

More than 30 swabs of blood taken from the kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway were found to be Montgomery's, Solinski testified, most with a statistical certainty of 6.4 billion to one. Similar levels of certainly were determined for blood found on a bed sheet, hoodie and box spring mattress police found in the apartment bedroom.

Moreover, nine swabs taken from ax found in a linen closet were found to be Montgomery's blood, including one one on the wedge and three on the head.

Montgomery's DNA profile was obtained by taking a sample from a toothbrush she owned and comparing it to samples provided by her parents. Solinski's statistical confidence that the DNA from the toothbrush was Montgomery's was 100 billion to one.

"To me that is a very strong, strong association and I am scientifically convinced that this can be used as a comparison sample," Solinski said.

Legebokoff gave no facial expression but a rash appeared to creep up the back of his neck as the results were presented.

Other evidence presented Wednesday linked Legebokoff to the other three of his alleged murder victims.

DNA from Cynthia Frances Maas, 35, whose body was found Oct. 9, 2010 in L.C. Gunn Park, was found on a pickaroon also seized from Legebokoff's apartment after his arrest, as well as on a sock found in his truck and on the sweater he was wearing when he was arrested.

And blood from Jill Stacey Stuchenko, 35, found on a couch seized from Legebokoff's apartment. Her body was found in a gravel pit off Otway Road on Oct. 20, 2009, about a year before Maas' body was found.

Three witnesses who lived with Legebokoff in a 1500-block Carney Street home at the time of the discovery identified the couch as his and one said she helped him load it into the back of his pick up truck when he moved to the 1400-block Liard apartment in April 2010.

Legebokoff was first arrested on Nov. 27, 2010 shortly after the body of Loren Donn Leslie, 15, was found near a gravel pit north of Vanderhoof off Highway 27. Blood from Leslie was found on a pipe wrench, utility tool, sweater, shorts and shoes seized from Legebokoff when he was arrested, the court has also heard.

Cross examination of Solinski will begin today, 9:30 a.m. start, at the Prince George courthouse.

 

Cody Legebokoff had blood on face, legs when arrested, Crown says

24-year-old accused of killing 3 women, teen girl near Prince George and Vanderhoof, B.C.

CBC News

June 03, 2014

It was the slaying of a 15-year-old girl that first brought accused killer Cody Legebokoff to the attention of police in B.C.

The 24-year-old is now on trial in Prince George, B.C., charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Loren Leslie, 15, Jill Stuchenko, 35, Cynthia Maas, 35, and Natasha Montgomery, 23, who all died in 2009 or 2010.

In his opening statement Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Joseph Temple told the jury that Legebokoff's DNA was found on at least three of the four homicide victims.

Temple said it was Leslie's case that first drew police's attention to Legebokoff. The Crown alleges Legebokoff met Leslie in November 2010 after exchanging text messages and having conversations on the social media site Nexopia and arranging to buy alcohol.

When a suspicious RCMP officer saw Legebokoff's truck leave a remote side road near Vanderhoof, B.C., he pulled Legebokoff over. The officer noticed a blood smear on the man's face and legs, and there was a pool of blood in the truck, Temple said.

A conservation officer found Leslie's partially buried body near a gravel pit off the bush road, her pants pulled down. She had died of head injuries and loss of blood.

Temple said Legebokoff initially told police he discovered the girl by accident, then said the two had met, and had consensual sex. He later changed his story and claimed Leslie became agitated and started hitting and stabbing herself.

He said he struck her twice to put her out of misery, said Temple.

Father and mother of slain teen testify

Leslie's father Doug was asked in the witness box Tuesday to identify his daughter`s belongings: a monkey knapsack allegedly found in Legebokoff's truck, a black and white checkered wallet, her glasses and a family ring Doug had made for her containing all the birthstones of the family.

Under cross-examination, he denied defence counsel James Heller`s suggestions that Loren Leslie had been bipolar or psychotic. Leslie said his daughter had serious anxiety issues, but was a normal girl.

Donna Leslie also testified at the trial Tuesday. She told jurors that Loren had texted her the night of her death to say she was meeting a girlfriend. She was told to be home at 1 a.m. PT. Donna said she dozed off and was awoken by a police phone call telling her that her daughter's body had been found.

While in the witness box, she hugged Loren's monkey backpack when it was shown to her and said Loren loved it and wore it all the time.

Donna also said her daughter had told her she'd been sexually assaulted, but she didn't believe it at the time. She said Loren was diagnosed with post-traumatic depression and was taking medication.

Blunt force trauma

In earlier testimony on Monday, the Crown prosecutor laid out the rest of its case, telling jurors that victims Stuchenko and Maas both suffered blunt force trauma to their heads, as well as other wounds.

Maas's body was found in a park on the outskirts of Prince George, naked from the waist down.

Temple said that once Legebokoff was in custody, other forensic evidence started turning up. He said a pickaxe found in Legebokoff's apartment had traces of Maas's DNA. He also told the jury that experts will testify that semen samples taken from Stuchenko's body match Legebokoff's DNA.

Montgomery's body was never found. However, Temple told the jury several items, including shirts, shorts, bedsheets, a comforter and an axe found in Legebokoff's apartment tested positive for her DNA.

The three older women were known to have worked in the sex trade.

Legebokoff, who worked at a Ford dealership as a mechanic, frequently used cocaine obtained from women in the sex trade, Temple said.

Legebokoff is now sporting a neat goatee and a shaved head, a much different appearance from the fresh-faced former high school athlete seen in pictures up until now.

The trial is expected to last six to eight months.

 

Legebokoff trial: Injuries of victims outlined

By Teresa Mallam - Pgfreepress.com

June 20, 2014

Dr. James Stephen, an expert in the field of forensic pathology, spent most of Wednesday describing a litany of injuries inflicted upon two of Cody Alan Legebokoff’s alleged murder victims.

Stephen said he performed an autopsy on Jill Stuchenko on Oct. 29, 2009 and also on Cynthia Maas on Oct. 13, 2010. Stuchenko’s body was well preserved, he said, while Maas’ remains were in an “advanced state of decomposition.”

Asked by Crown prosecutor Joseph Temple to estimate how long Maas may have been deceased before her discovery, Stephen could only say she “could have been out there (L.C. Gunn Park) three weeks or more.”

Legebokoff, 24, is standing trial in B.C. Supreme Court in connection with the first-degree murder of four women: Loren Leslie, 15, Jill Stuchenko, 35, Cynthia Maas, 35, and Natasha Montgomery, 24.

In the case of Stuchenko, the pathologist said he found two scalp lacerations (he distinguished those as tears or splits rather than cuts in the skin) – one in the temple area, another at the back of the head. He described autopsy photos of multiple bruising to her legs, thigh, kneecap, calf and ankle, and a star-shaped wound going through the thickness of the earlobe (possibly animal activity).

A tear found in the anal area “speaks to force,” he suggested.

Asked how old the bruises were, Stephen said most of the bruises, especially “extensive” bruising on Stuchenko’s left forearm, were bright red in colour and appeared to be recent, around the time of death.

He said the linear laceration at the back of her scalp was likely inflicted shortly before death. The arm injuries are consistent with how people being hit with multiple blows raise their arms to protect their heads.

It wasn’t until the scalp was brought forward in normal autopsy procedure, that he “then found a skull fracture” towards the back of the skull, beneath the laceration.

Asked what force is required, the pathologist said it took “significant force.” The skull area is thick, he said, a buttress which protects the brain and so has some resilience. He called the resulting injury moderate to severe and explained that loss of consciousness can result, the body organs can slow or shut down, and death may occur.

Further, blood was found in Stuchenko’s airways and lungs, he said, noting the “most likely explanation” was an injury to the jaw, mouth or neck which allowed blood to enter those areas. From an analysis of the toxicology reports, Stephen said he found she was a “chronic user of cocaine” and had likely used cocaine within a few hours of her death.

When cocaine is found “intact” (not all broken down into metabolites), it usually means fairly recent use, Stephen said. In summary, the pathologist listed head injuries, scalp lacerations and multiple cerebral contusions found on the victim’s body as his findings.

“Is that enough to cause death?” asked Temple.

“Yes,” said Stephen.

The 14-person jury trial began June 2 in Prince George and is expected to last several months with B.C. Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett presiding over the case.

 

Cody Alan Legebokoff: The country boy accused in the murders of four B.C. women

By Tamsin McMahon | NationalPost.com

October 18, 2011

He was the baby-faced high school athlete with a large and loving family in northern B.C. But police allege 21-year-old Cody Alan Legebokoff was also a teenage serial killer who murdered at least three women and a 15-year-old girl, dumping bodies in the backwoods during a year-long violent spree.

The picture emerging of Mr. Legebokoff from interviews with family, friends and school administrators, is one of a popular and well-adjusted young man from a good home. He competed on downhill skiing and snowboarding teams during high school in Fort St. James, northwest of Prince George. Like many Canadian boys, he played hockey and his name is listed among the competitors in the 2002 Challenge Cup, an annual international hockey tournament in Vancouver.

“He had a good upbringing — everything was perfect,” said Mr. Legebokoff’s grandfather, Roy Goodwin. “I hunted with him. I fished with him. We did everything and he was a perfectly normal child. He was no different than you or I when we were younger.”

It is a portrait at odds with the dark picture painted by homicide investigators with the Vanderhoof RCMP, who charged Mr. Legebokoff with the murders of three women on Friday. He was already in custody, charged with the murder of Loren Donn Leslie, a legally blind 15-year-old girl. Police arrested Mr. Legebokoff last November after a Vanderhoof RCMP officer returning from a meeting with colleagues spotted a 2004 GMC pickup truck speeding away from an unused logging of Highway 27 road at night. A conservation officer, who originally thought he was investigating a report of poaching, found the body of Ms. Leslie, whom police say had been murdered only hours before.

Police weren’t ruling out the possibility that Mr. Legebokoff could be linked to more killings even as they said the murders weren’t related to the Highway of Tears investigation of 18 women who have gone missing along Highway 16 from Prince George to Prince Rupert since 1969.

Ms. Leslie’s father, Doug Leslie, said forensic evidence from the truck led police to charge Mr. Legebokoff with the murders of Cynthia Frances Maas, 35, Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 23, and Jill Stacey Stuchenko, 35. All three were mothers who reportedly worked in the sex trade. Ms. Maas’ body was found L.C. Gunn Park on the banks of the Fraser River. Ms. Stuchenko’s body was found in a gravel pit near Prince George. Ms. Montgomery’s body has yet to be found. Police say the killings began in October 2009, when Mr. Legebokoff would have been just 19.

Blond and fresh faced, the 6-foot-2 man was a normal and popular kid who excelled at sports, said Ray LeMoigne, superintendent of the school district that includes the Fort St. James high school Mr. Legebokoff graduated from in 2008. He spent some time after graduation in Lethbridge, police said, before moving to Prince George, where he worked as a mechanic.

“Cody has a loving family and caring parents, siblings and a large extended family in the region,” Mr. LeMoigne told the Prince George Citizen. “In school he was well liked by his peers and was very good at sports. He played minor hockey at all levels and belonged to the downhill ski and snowboard team.”

“He’s from a wonderful home,” said Ms. Leslie’s grandmother, Kathleen Leslie, who grew up with Mr. Legebokoff’s grandfather in Fraser Lake. “It’s hard to fathom. [The family doesn't] know what in the world could have caused this.”

Mr. Goodwin said his family is struggling to come to grips with the magnitude of the allegations his grandson is facing.

“Everybody liked him, there wasn’t a person that had a bad thing to say about him — nobody,” said the grandfather, who last saw Mr. Legebokoff a month before his November 2010 arrest when he showed up at a Thanksgiving dinner with a girlfriend. “There’s a split personality or something wrong in his head. He needs a doctor to help him.”

Friends, most of them asking not to be named, began lining up to defend Mr. Legebokoff.

“Cody has always been in the wrong place at the wrong time..this could have been one of those moments,” wrote someone identifying themselves as CJRM on the website for CPKG-TV, the news channel in Prince George. “He is a great buddy of mine, and I wouldn’t hesitate for one seconde [sic] to get in a vehicle with him and go cruising. He was my two stepping partner nights we would go out dancing, I have seen him in bar fights and I have pissed that boy off a few good times, and not once had he ever shown any signs to lose his mind and kill me or anyone else.”

Another friend who knew Mr. Legebokoff in school told the Vanderhoof Omineca Express that he never showed any signs of violence. He was living with three close female friends in Prince George and dating a girl who went to College of New Caledonia at the time of his arrest, the friend said.

“He was very sociable and kind-hearted…didn’t hurt others.”

But the friend added that Mr. Legebokoff disappeared for a while shortly before Ms. Leslie’s murder. “He went missing for a few weeks before the murder, like right before, and he didn’t tell anyone where he went, he just disappeared.”

RCMP say Mr. Legebokoff frequently used social media and online dating sites to “correspond with friends, associates, potential girlfriends and others” using the handle 1CountryBoy.

A profile by that name on Nexopia shows a young man who resembles Mr. Legebokoff listed as age 21 and from Prince George. The profile includes the lyrics from Justin Moore’s Backwoods, an eerie association for a man accused of murdering women and dumping their bodies in remote and wooded areas:

“Out in the backwoods/down in the haller/Out in the backwoods/Working hard for a daller/In the backwoods, yeah we got it done rite/work hard, play hard, hold my baby tight/lordy have mersey/ its a real good life in the backwoods.”