Canadian air force commander to admit murder charges

[CHIMO]

Source: guardian.co.uk

The lawyer for a military commander who flew the Queen and other dignitaries around Canada has said his client will plead guilty to murder, sexual assaults and break-ins.

Colonel Russell Williams was the commander of Canada's largest air force base until he was charged this year with the murder of two women, the sexual assault of two others and 82 break-ins during which he stole women's underwear.

The case shocked the country, hurt soldiers' morale and prompted fears that the commander of Canada's most high-profile military base and the man who once flew the country's prime ministers could have been a serial killer.

In 2005 Williams, who was born in England and raised in Canada, was pictured with the Queen and Prince Philip while he served as their pilot during a visit.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/07/canada-air-chief-murder-charges

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http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/872144--trail-of-crime-finally-leads-to-williams?bn=1

[polly7]

1. Wow.

Thank goodness they caught him. I doubt he would have stopped. Just imagining such a freak in a position of such power is terrifying.

Those poor women:(.

[applegrove]

4. They caught him because of the tred marks his tires made in the snow. Thank god.

[polly7]

5. Yes, that was pretty good detective work and follow-up on their part.

He probably thought he was home-free after they waved him through. So glad there was snow!

[Darth_Kitten]

13. Apparently he was once pals with Paul Bernardo....

For anybody who doesn't know this guy, one of Canada's worst serial killers. :(

[defendandprotect]

2. Feel badly for Canada -- !!! Some day .....

we have to actually acknowledge and begin to deal with male violence!

[greiner3]

3. Sorry;

I had not even heard a whisper of this. Too much tea bagger shit going on to have this intrude into my world.

[Canuckistanian]

6. It's astounding how such a sex offender could rise to such a high military position

This was the commander of one of our biggest air bases.

I saw a TV special on his crimes. They gave almost hour-by-hour accounts of his actions on certain days.

One day, he was escorting the Minister of Defence on a tour - eight hours later, he was breaking into some woman's house and stealing all the contents of her underwear drawer.

A real sicko.

The REAL crime is the two murders of women in the area. One of them was fairly close to where I live and I remember seeing posters of one of the missing women at local stores - before she was found murdered.

[molly77]

7. Not surprising to me

Ever heard of the work of Rev. Kevin Annette? He found out the Canadian govt and Anglican Church had been murdering, physically and sexually abusing Indigenous children as late as the 70s. Forcibly taking the children from their families and putting them in boarding schools. They have found lots of graves.

Think Stephen Harper has offered them a billion dollars retribution. Probably won't fork it over. Canada is still very abusive to their Indigenous People. mohawknationnews Believe they have US beat on that score.

[polly7]

8. Not sure what this has to do with the OP as there are sickos in every country,

even in the military, no? ..... but yes, Canada has a terrible history when it comes to removing these children and all the subsequent horrors that occurred. 'Still very abusive' ........... I'm not so sure about that, or, at least, we're trying to make reparations and improve their circumstances. Land is being given back, formal apologies have been made, Health-Care studies are finally dealing with improving lives in northern communities and on reservations, working in conjunction with their own governing bodies. We're not perfect, but imo we're trying much harder than many to help our First Nations People. Not nearly as much as we should be doing, imo, but we're trying. If we could get rid of Harper, we'd do much better. If I remember correctly, it was a 2 billion dollar reparation package about 5 or 6 years ago.

on edit: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1515949.htm

http://www.claihr.ca/projects/residentialSchoolsTruthCommission.html

http://www.claihr.ca/projects/addressingIndianResidential.html

Not enough, and certainly will never heal the harm done to our indigenous people or the prejudices against them to this day, much more to be done.

[applegrove]

9. One of the reasons why there is more abuse in canada is because we didn't genocide our indigenous

peoples in Canada like they did in the USA so there have been more first peoples alive to be abused in the last century. In the USA populations were decimated, Canada...not so much. Thankfully those schools have been closed. Still takes too long for issues to go through the courts. And even then the judges don't necessarily rule with full empathy for the first nations people.

[OnlinePoker]

14. They shouldn't rule with empathy for one group over another

There should never be a double standard in the rule of law. All should be treated equal in the eyes of the court.

[applegrove]

16. There was a court case in British Columbia back 22 years ago. The British didn't bother

to do treaties with the first nations people of BC. So the whole province was on the agenda. The judge ruled that the native peoples didn't have a system of administration back in the 1800s so they weren't nation states. The British did have people counting furs in remote outposts so they were an example of statehood. (I can barely remember the decision). Anyhow the point was that first nations people were not nations and this is ridiculous because they had art and potlatches and all sorts of cultural things that made them very rich nations (they fished salmon for 3 months a year and smoked it...they could do art the rest of the year which is a sign of a wealthy and advanced peoples). That is what I mean by empathy. And certainly another judge could have decided the case differently.

[Psephos]

17. Canada is hardly a model for how to treat indigenous people well while taking their land.

Who did Canada belong to before there was a Canada? Who does it belong to now?

[applegrove]

21. Of course we treated our peoples terribly. Signing deals then reneging on them. I never

implied that we treated them well.

[Posteritatis]

20. I'd dispute the claim that we didn't do that. (nt)

[applegrove]

22. We didn't fight our native people to the death like they did in the USA. There were some instances

of the handing out of smallpox blankets so for sure there was some genocide in Canada. We have nothing to be proud of.

[Posteritatis]

23. We did strive to exterminate their cultures in other ways, though

If you go by contemporary international law, things like the residential schools qualify under most of the criteria (and close to all of them if you assume the deaths were deliberate).

[applegrove]

24. Yes.

[Canuckistanian]

11. Not an exact analogy

The residential schools thing was institutional and happened over decades, and in a very different community - religious vs. the military in this case.

And the military has very few examples of institutionalized abuse and sexual misconduct. That we know about.

[Posteritatis]

19. He's being implicated in several other unsolved murders too, I believe. (nt)

[Strelnikov_]

10. "could have been a serial killer" ???

I think that ship has sailed.

[Amonester]

12. May that despicable bastard roth in jail forever.

The bad news is, they will release him on parole one day, and that day will always be too soon...

[Kingofalldems]

15. Reminds me of "Night of the Generals"

[Octafish]

18. Incredible.

Psychopaths seem normal at the highest levels.

[applegrove]

25. Yup. The Mask of Sanity. They are morally insane. Thank god for

MRI brain scans in the years to come.