CANADA • Anne-Sophie, 3 & Olivier, 5 TURCOTTE ~ Montreal QC

Anne-Sophie Turcotte, 3, and her brother Olivier Turcotte, 5, found murdered in their father's Piedmont, QC home February 21, 2009.

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Cardiologist is accused of killing his 2 young children

The cardiologist has been in police custody for the past year, since his two children Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, were found stabbed to death in their parents' rented home in the Laurentians town of Piedmont on Feb. 21, 2009.


Guy Turcotte, a 37-year-old cardiologist, faces two first-degree murder charges.

Turcotte was found lying on the floor after attempting suicide. He had to be transferred to a Montreal hospital for treatment because his colleagues at the Hôtel-Dieu Regional Hospital in nearby Saint-Jérôme couldn't treat him.

The mother of the children, Isabelle Gaston, was skiing in Charlevoix the weekend they died. Gaston, an emergency-room physician, was separated from Turcotte at the time.

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Three-year-old Anne-Sophie Turcotte and five-year-old Olivier Turcotte were found Saturday morning by police who had been asked to check on the home by concerned relatives. Police said there were signs of violence on the children's bodies.

They also found the children's father at the house, alive and in need of medical attention due to an apparent drug overdose, police said.

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Guy Turcotte killed his children with at least 16 stab wounds each
April 30, 2009


Anne-Sophie, 3, Olivier, 5, stabbed to death by their father February 21, 2009.

Guy Turcotte dealt no less than 16 stab wounds to each of his children while they slept, February 21 in the Piedmont home in the Laurentians.

This is the evidence presented by the prosecution against the 36 year old man, accused of the premeditated murder of Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3.

The cardiologist would then have attempted suicide by swallowing a large quantity of windshield washer fluid.

If Mr. Turcotte is convicted, he will automatically be sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for 25 years.

http://lejournaldequebec.canoe.ca/actualites/faitsdiversetjudiciaires/archives/2009/04/20090430-163949.html

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Turcotte arraigned on first degree murder charges
Feb 24, 2009
Dr. Guy Turcotte was arraigned Tuesday on two charges of first degree murder in relation to deaths of his two children. If found guilty, he could face 25 years in prison.

The 36-year-old cardiologist was found Saturday in his Piedmont home, suffering from an apparent overdose. The bodies of his two young children, Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, were also found in the house.

Police said there were signs of violence on the children's bodies.

Turcotte is currently recuperating at Sacre Coeur hospital in Montreal. While doctors have given law enforcement the go-ahead for the arraignment, he is not well enough to go to the court house in St. Jerome.

He was represented in court by his lawyers, brothers Guy and Pierre Poupart.

When the doctors say Turcotte is well enough, he will be taken to prison. Bail for a first degree murder charge is rare.

A charge of first degree murder means the crime was premeditated.

http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090224/mtl_turcotte_090224/20090224/?hub=MontrealHome

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Mother haunted by children's deaths



The mother of two young children who were killed in Piedmont, Que., in February says she has no room for forgiveness while her estranged husband faces murder charges.

Isabelle Gaston broke her silence Friday, speaking out on the deaths of five-year-old Olivier and three-year-old Anne-Sophie Turcotte in an interview with the French-language TVA television network.

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Jury selection to begin
April 11, 2011

MONTREAL -- The trial of a Quebec cardiologist accused of killing his two children is set to get underway this week with jury selection.

Guy Turcotte, 38, has been charged with two counts of first degree murder after his two children were found stabbed to death in 2009.

Quebecers from across the province took interest in the case. The mother of the children, Isabelle Gaston, told QMI Agency in 2009 that she was contacted by thousands of people offering their support.

Popular Quebec singer Marie-Mai wrote a song about the murders.

Turcotte and his wife separated in the winter of 2009. They worked together at a hospital in Saint-Jerome, about 60 km north of Montreal. She is an emergency physician.

Soon after the separation, their two children, Anne-Sophie, 3, and Olivier, 5, were found murdered in a home their father was renting in Piedmont, about 75 km north of Montreal.

Turcotte has been in jail since his 2009 arrest.

About 800 potential jurors will be in court Thursday. The trial will likely begin in April or early May and will last about six weeks.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2011/04/09/17934051.html

Turcotte has reportedly been hospitalized for suicide attempts while in prison.

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Que. doctor admits to killing his children
Jury to consider mental state as cardiologist pleads not guilty
April 18, 2011

A Quebec cardiologist charged with two counts of first-degree murder admitted Monday that he stabbed his two children in 2009.

The lawyer for Guy Turcotte made the admission at the opening of the trial in Saint-Jérôme on Monday.

Pierre Poupart said his client admits to causing the death of his children — five-year-old Olivier and three-year-old Anne-Sophie — two years ago.

But the jury will have to determine Turcotte's state of mind at the time of the crimes and whether he knew what he was doing, Poupart told the court during his opening statement.


Police tape blocks access to a house in Piedmont, Que., where the bodies of two young
children were found on Feb. 21, 2009. Graham Hughes/Canadian Press

Turcotte's children were found stabbed to death on Feb. 21, 2009, inside a house he rented in Piedmont, a small town in the Laurentians 70 kilometres north of Montreal.

Turcotte, 38, has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He was determined fit to stand trial at his preliminary hearing held in 2010.

A jury of seven women and five men is hearing his murder trial.

About 30 witnesses are expected to testify in the case, including Turcotte's mother Margaret Fournier and his former spouse, Isabelle Gaston.

The trial is expected to last between six and eight weeks.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/04/18/turcotte-murder-trial-opens.html

Weeping Turcotte begged to die
Killed kids to spare them suffering, court hears
April 22, 2011



As he lay on a hospital bed after killing his two children and drinking two litres of windshield wiper fluid, Guy Turcotte obsessed about his wife, who'd left him for another man.

"If you only knew what she's put me through," Turcotte told emergency room manager and colleague Guylaine Paquin, she testified on Thursday at Turcotte's first-degree murder trial before Quebec Superior Court.

Paquin, reeling from the shock of seeing the cardiologist she'd known for five years in this state, tried to contain her emotions and treat him like any other patient, she said. As Turcotte tightly held Paquin's hand, he wondered out loud what happened to his relationship with his wife, Isabelle Gaston, also a doctor at the St. Jérôme hospital.

"He said 'She had everything she wanted, did everything she wanted and travelled where she wanted,' " Paquin recalled. Turcotte, she said, cried, but was coherent and recognized his colleagues on that tragic Feb. 21, 2009.

Emergency room nurse Chantal Duhamel had seen Turcotte just the day before at work and said he was his calm, kind and smiling self.

"There was a bit of sadness in his eyes," she told the jury in a packed St. Jérôme courtroom. "And given the separation, he was a little quieter."

Choking back tears, Duhamel told the hushed court that Turcotte pleaded with her to let him die, saying he didn't want any treatment because he was a criminal.

"He looked at me and said he'd killed his children because he didn't want them to suffer from the separation," said the nurse.


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Jury hears grim details of kids' deaths
Last moments filled with terror; As Turcotte weeps in the prisoner's box, multiple stabbings of children are detailed
April 28, 2011

The image is one few in the courtroom will be able to erase from their minds: Anne-Sophie Turcotte, whose 3-year-old world was filled with Caillou and Winnie the Pooh, gripping her head and tearing out her hair as her father stabbed her 19 times.

During what has to date been the most difficult day of Guy Turcotte's first-degree murder trial, jury members heard Wednesday how the 36-pound child and her helpless brother Olivier, 5, died in their beds after struggling to shield themselves from their father, a cardiologist apparently distraught that his wife left him for another man.

Olivier, who would have turned 8 Wednesday, weighed 64 pounds when he was stabbed 27 times on his front, back and hands.

Anne-Sophie, stabbed in the chest, stomach and lower abdomen, was found naked - save for a pair of panties - with her left hand above her head, her right arm bent to touch her shoulder. Strands of her own hair were found in her tiny fists - a sign of distress, a biologist told Quebec Superior Court in St. Jérôme.

"It happens sometimes in these cases where the victim will grab his or her head and tear some hair out," François Julien told the hushed courtroom, as Turcotte, 39, cried in the prisoner's box.

Anne-Sophie had cuts on her hands and most likely rolled to her side on her bed, where her chest and stomach wounds left a large puddle of blood. She then returned to her back and endured another round of stabbings, Julien said.

A blood stain on the side of her mattress matched one found on the left knee of Turcotte's pants, suggesting he had knelt in a pool of Anne-Sophie's blood, then standing beside her bed, leaned over her to stab her, Julien testified.

Both the Crown and defence admit that Turcotte, a former cardiologist at St. Jérôme's Hôtel Dieu Hospital, killed his two children sometime between Feb. 21 and 22, 2009. What the jury must determine at the end of the sevenweek long trial is whether he meant to kill them.

Two knives were found in the house and pathologist André Bourgault testified Wednesday that the size of the stab wounds suggested the smaller knife - a bit bigger than a paring knife - was used.

And while he couldn't say with certainty when the children died, he said they didn't die instantaneously. Olivier was found on his bed in another room, his right arm covered in blood from the hand to just below the shoulder.

"This suggests he probably had his right arm over his chest," Julien said.

Tiny drops of blood splattered on the sheets and Turcotte's shirt came from Olivier's mouth, as he struggled to breathe with injured lungs, Julien told the seven-woman, five-man jury, who remained composed throughout.

The boy was on his side for some time before returning to his back and the position in which he was found.

A large knife, partly concealed by Olivier's bleeding torso and flecked with the same blood droplets, was found on the bed.

"Nothing suggests to me that this knife had been used," Julien said, explaining that if it had been used, it would look as though it had been wiped.

The jury has already heard during the first six days of testimony that Turcotte and his wife, Isabelle Gaston, had recently split and Gaston was seeing another man.

On the evening of Feb. 21, 2009, Turcotte spoke at length by phone with his mother, expressing his distress over the relationship. The next day, worried about her son's state of mind, Marguerite Fournier and her husband drove to their son's rented Piedmont home.

When they couldn't open the door or reach their son by phone, they called police, who made the horrific discovery inside.

Turcotte, who was hiding under the master bed, was arrested and taken to hospital. There, his shocked colleagues tried to deal with the surreal situation.

Turcotte wanted to die and said he'd drunk about two litres of windshield wiper fluid.

Earlier on Wednesday, Sylvain Harvey, an investigator with the Sûreté du Québec, showed the court an inventory of things he seized from Turcotte's home.

A near-empty plastic jug of purple Pacer windshield wiper fluid, a receipt dated Feb. 20, 2009, for $45.24 from Video Zone and a printout from a Google search on narcissistic personalities were found in the isolated home.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Jury+hears+grim+details+kids+deaths/4687052/story.html

Turcotte drank lethal amount of wiper fluid
April 28, 2011

Anne-Sophie and Olivier Turcotte had been given no drugs or alcohol before their violent deaths but their father, who is on trial for their murders, had ingested a lethal dose of windshield wiper fluid.

Testifying Thursday at the cardiologist's first-degree murder trial, toxicologist Anne-Marie Faucher said the first toxic effects of the liquid can occur between 6 and 30 hours after ingestion.

"Without treatment, he would have died but it would have been a long death," she told Quebec Superior Court in St. Jérôme.

The level in Turcotte's blood was 310 milligrams of methanol for 100 millilitres of blood, meaning he drank a "very large" quantity, Faucher said.

Turcotte, 39, was found by police on Feb. 21, 2009, covered in vomit and blood hiding under his bed in his rented Piedmont home. Anne-Sophie, 3, and Olivier, 5, were in their beds, dead from multiple stab wounds.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Turcotte+drank+lethal+amount+wiper+fluid/4690433/story.html#ixzz1L4uNXav4

Store surveillance video shows the last time Anne-Sophie, 3, and Olivier, 5, were seen alive, with their father Guy Turcotte, before he murdered them.


Killer Turcotte read emails between wife and lover
May 3, 2011

Cardiologist Guy Turcotte reread several romantic emails between his wife and her lover, then surfed the Web for suicide methods before killing his two children.

A computer expert with the Sûreté du Québec told Turcotte's first-degree murder trial Monday that the emails between Isabelle Gaston and Martin Huot, written at the end of January 2009 and forwarded to Turcotte on Feb. 17 of that year by Huot's girlfriend, Patricia Giroux, were opened several times on the evening of Feb. 20, 2009.

The next morning, the bodies of Anne-Sophie, 3, and Olivier, 5, were found in their beds in their father's rented home in Piedmont, 75 kilometres northwest of Montreal. They were dead from several stab wounds.

In one email, Gaston, who worked in the emergency department of St. Jérôme's Hôtel Dieu Hospital, tells Huot that Turcotte is very sad, but angry as well.

Gaston and Turcotte had recently separated, and Turcotte had moved out of the family's home in Prévost, about 65 kilometres north of Montreal.

Huot tells Gaston that he hoped Anne-Sophie "didn't ask too many questions when I left this morning. Maybe we shouldn't put my coat in the closet next time - too much noise."

In some emails, Gaston said she wasn't sure she should call Huot, and the two make plans to go skiing together.

After receiving a worried phone call from Turcotte's mother on Feb. 21, police broke into the locked house and found a blood-and vomit-stained Turcotte, 39, hiding under his bed. He told police to leave him alone to die.

He had ingested windshield wiper fluid after having done a Google search on how best to commit suicide without suffering.

One Wikipedia page that had been opened on Turcotte's laptop outlines the toxic effects of methanol, a key ingredient in wiper fluid.

The trial is now in its third week, with plenty of spectators showing up daily to the St. Jérôme courthouse to hear the disturbing details.

On Monday, court viewed footage of the children - recorded on surveillance camera as they dropped into a video rental store with their father. The three, Turcotte holding his daughter's winter jacket over his arm, weave among other customers toward the cashier about 4:20 p.m. on Feb. 20.

Anne-Sophie, her hair in pigtails, is hoisted onto the counter beside the cashier as Turcotte prepares to pay. Olivier, wearing a striped hat, mittens and winter jacket, helps his dad by passing him a pen lying on the counter. Turcotte's arms encircle Anne-Sophie as he signs his credit card receipt.

Then the three disappear out of view, with Anne-Sophie taking a second or two to realize her dad and brother were ahead of her, heading out the store.

Also Monday, Jean Gauthier, head of cardiology at the St. Jérôme hospital, said he saw Turcotte briefly a few time in the week leading up to the children's deaths. He said Turcotte seemed sad and had lost weight, but his work was the same as always.

Turcotte had spoken to Gauthier in January about the separation, saying since he would have shared custody of the children, he'd have to arrange his schedule accordingly.

Under cross-examination from defence lawyer Guy Poupart, Gauthier said Turcotte had never been aggressive or violent.

The trial continues Tuesday. Gaston is expected to testify Wednesday.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Killer+Turcotte+read+emails+between+wife+lover/4715027/story.html

More emotional testimony at double murder trial
May 4, 2011



The new boyfriend of Guy Turcotte's estranged wife Isabelle Gaston took the stand today, talking about how the two started their relationship roughly two months before the children of Turcotte and Gagnon were found stabbed to death by their father.

Martin Huot testified that he met the couple in November 2007. He was Gaston's personal trainer and was going out with someone else at the time.

He said the foursome sometimes went out together.

Huot testified that about a year later he started to have feelings for Gaston but that it was complicated with the children and their respective partners, so they didn't do anything about it.

But he said both relationships ended up on the rocks and the two started seeing each other at the end of 2008.

Huot testified that about 10 days before the tragedy, he and Turcotte saw each other at the family home where Huot had spent the night with Gaston and Turcotte was dropping off the kids, 5-year-old Olivier and 3-year-old Anne-Sophie. Huot testified that Turcotte was angry and aggressive then punched him in the eye. Huot said he had to duck a few more thrown at him. Huot testified that Turcotte yelled at him, "You stole my wife, you stole my kids. You're a goddamned hypocrite. You said you were my friend."

Turcotte sat with a grim, steely look on his face, after glancing at Huot when he first came into the packed courtroom.

The next two witnesses testified that Turcotte called them collect in April, two months after the alleged murders, while he was in preventive custody after his arrest. They said he apologized to them.

Patrick Gaston, Isabelle Gaston's brother, broke down, saying, "It's not everyday I get a call from a murderer who does the irreparable to my niece and nephew."

Carole Lachance, a daycare provider who looked after the children, testified that Turcotte told her he was sorry for the pain he caused her, adding he knew how much she loved the children. She became emotional during her testimony, saying she wished she could have spoke to and comforted Turcotte when he picked up his daughter the day of the tragedy. She testified that he told her that she couldn't have known, that she couldn't have guessed, and that there was nothing she could have done. Turcotte could be seen crying and wiping his eyes with tissues during her testimony

Both Lachance and Patrick Gaston testified that Turcotte told them the same story about that night: that he was sitting in the living room crying when his son came up to him and hugged him, telling him, "I love you, Daddy," then went up to bed. Both testified that Turcotte told them he should have gone to bed with them.

Turcotte's first degree murder trial resumes tomorrow morning. The children's mother Isabelle Gaston is expected to testify.

http://www.cjad.com/CJADLocalNewsEntry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10233748

Killer Turcotte described as model father
May 4, 2011

snipped.....Once back from his vacation, Turcotte moved out of the family home in Prévost, in the Laurentians, bought another home in mid-February and was set to attend an inspection on Feb. 21, 2009.

But about 8:30 the night before, Turcotte left a message with his real-estate agent cancelling the appointment. He also cancelled with the babysitter.

The next morning, police found both children in their beds, stabbed to death. Turcotte, who had ingested windshield wiper fluid, was under a bed and asked police to let him die.

Giroux said SQ investigators called her Feb. 21 and said they wanted to talk to her about a double slaying.

“I thought it was Isabelle and Martin,” she said. “The investigator told me it was the children.”


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Mom's testimony about two kids, killed by dad, leaves Quebec courtroom in tears
May 5, 2011


Red police tape bars the entrance to the home of Cardiologist Dr. Guy Turcotte in Piedmont, north of Montreal, Monday, February 23, 2009. Turcotte's two children, Oliver and his sister, Anne-Sophie Turcotte, 3 were found dead in his house.

ST-JEROME, Que. - Isabelle Gaston looked directly at her estranged husband in a Quebec courtroom Thursday and told him he wasn't a bad parent — even if he ended up killing their two young children.

Testifying at the trial of Quebec cardiologist Guy Turcotte, Gaston turned to her ex in the prisoner's box.

"You weren't a bad father, that I know," she said sobbing. "And I'll never say you were a bad father. Never."

It was one of several emotionally charged moments in the courtroom Thursday as a grieving mother shared loving memories of her two children killed by Turcotte, a once respected doctor.

About half the courtroom wept while listening to Gaston's testimony.

Even Turcotte, 39, began weeping when he heard his wife's name and those of his kids.

She testified that the couple always had its problems but she never believed Turcotte would hurt his own kids.

She is one of the final Crown witnesses in its case against Turcotte before the defence takes over.

Turcotte has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of five-year-old Olivier and three-year-old Anne-Sophie in February 2009.

They were stabbed to death in a rented home in Piedmont, Que., where Turcotte was also discovered after having ingested washer fluid.

Turcotte admits to killing the children but has denied intent. The defence has yet to present its case.

The testimony was so highly anticipated that members of the public began lining up an hour-and-a-half before the courthouse opened, just to get a seat.

While she often broke down on the stand, Gaston plowed through nearly two hours of testimony, recalling the final moments with her children.

She dressed Olivier the morning of Feb. 20, 2009, and gave him a kiss as he went off to school. He waved back at her, the final time Gaston saw him.

A few hours later, Anne-Sophie would be dropped off at daycare. But before setting off, Gaston scurried around the car for her daily exchange of a minimum of 20 kisses with the toddler, who was sitting in the child seat.

"Do you know how much I love you?," Gascon says the little girl told her as they shared their smooches.

The jury also heard that tensions had flared for an umpteenth and final time between Gaston and Turcotte when she had the locks changed at the home the couple once shared.

She switched them following a number of run-ins between her ex and her new boyfriend, Martin Huot.

She testified that Turcotte was livid.

"You want a war? You've got a war," she recalled him saying over the phone.

Gaston panicked at the threat. But she felt the warning was related to money.

She ended up deciding to go on a girls' weekend northeast of Quebec City. The next day, the kids were found dead. She found out about it on the news.

"I feel stupid for not thinking that he'd hurt the kids," Gaston said. "I never thought for a second he'd do that."

Gaston, an emergency-room physician at Hotel Dieu Hospital in St-Jerome, also cried as she told the jury about her relationship with Turcotte, which began when they were medical students in 1999.

"From the beginning we had our highs and lows," Gaston said.

"In 10 years I couldn't say it was all black or all white."

The couple fought — and fought a lot — about everything from parenting and money to intimacy and kids' extracurriculars.

Gaston said she tried to improve their relationship through reading self-help books and employing a life coach.

Despite the good that came with Olivier's birth in 2003 and Anne-Sophie's in 2005, there was also plenty of bad.

Gaston said they separated once, early on while dating, after she found gay porn on his computer. She found more porn again in 2008.

Although she confronted him, Turcotte vehemently denied being gay.

That discovery, coupled with the arguments and a lack of intimacy in their marriage, would be the beginning of the end, she said.

Gaston began a new relationship with Huot, a personal trainer. It blossomed quickly but she decided to keep it secret.

"I regret today not having told Guy myself earlier," Gaston said, referring to how Turcotte heard the news from a third party — Huot's ex.

"I waited because of Anne-Sophie and Olivier."

Gaston and Huot are still together today.

Gaston defended Turcotte as a good father while they were together. She said each contributed as a parent.

"Mothers and fathers don't always see eye to eye, but I think we were complementary," Gaston said.

Even when the couple split, she had hopes they might still be friends. She said she wanted them to be "a team" — to work together on raising the kids.

She last spoke to Turcotte on May 17, 2009, when she called a psychiatric hospital in Montreal and an operator transferred the call.

Gaston hadn't gone to work that day and was thinking of committing suicide herself. She had already written the letter. First, she wanted to ask Turcotte: why?

"Why the kids, Guy? I loved them more than I love myself," she told him.

He replied, according to Gaston's testimony: "Me too."

The trial continues Friday.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/moms-testimony-about-two-kids-killed-by-dad-leaves-quebec-courtroom-in-tears-121331244.html

'Non, Papa!' boy pleaded before death, Turcotte trial told
May 6, 2011


Dr. Guy Turcotte has been charged with first degree murder
in the deaths of his two children. Turcotte appears to have tried
to kill himself with a drug overdose and is in the intensive
care unit of a hospital in Montreal. Turcotteís two children, Oliver
and his sister, Anne-Sophie Turcotte, 3 were found dead in his house in Piedmont in 2009.


Isabelle Gaston clutched the oval silver locket containing the photos of her children Olivier, and Anne-Sophie to her chest, closed her eyes and exhaled deeply as she heard, for the first time, how they died at the hands of their father.

Olivier pleaded "Non Papa! Non Papa!" as Guy Turcotte stabbed the five-year-old several times with a knife, a witness testified Friday as sobs broke the silence in the packed courtroom.

"Then he went into his daughter's room and heard his son dying in his own blood," Luc Tanguay said Turcotte told him two weeks after the tragedy. "Then he killed his daughter."

In a controlled, slow monotone, Tanguay, who was a life coach to the couple, described his meeting with Turcotte March 7, 2009 at the Philippe Pinel Institute, where the cardiologist had been held for psychiatric evaluation since his arrest two weeks earlier.

Tanguay, who'd met with the troubled pair a few times to help them improve their communication, had seen Turcotte on Feb. 17, 2009, just four days before police made the horrific discovery in the Piedmont home Turcotte rented in January, when the couple split.

"He said he wanted to protect Isabelle Gaston financially," Tanguay told the Quebec Superior Court jury of that last meeting. "At first he wanted sole custody, but then decided shared custody would be better."

Turcotte, Tanguay said, was sad.

"When he left, I said, 'take care of yourself and your children," he testified. "He smiled and said, 'I'll take care of them.'"

When Tanguay heard the news of Turcotte's arrest four days later for the first-degree murder of his children, he was blown away and traumatized.

"And I still am," he said. "His children were his reason for living."

"You were shocked because there was no sign at all and in your eyes, this wasn't a man who was angry but rather sad," defence lawyer Guy Poupart said during cross-examination.

"Yes," Tanguay said.

At Pinel, Turcotte told Tanguay that on the evening of Feb. 20, 2009, he watched videos with his children, then re-read a series of romantic emails between Gaston and Martin Huot, the couple's personal trainer and friend, with whom Gaston was having an affair.

Turcotte, 39, then searched the internet for a quick way to commit suicide. He drank windshield wiper fluid and spoke to his mother by phone for about an hour.

"He said he didn't want his children to find him dead the next day, so he decided to take them with him," Tanguay recalled Turcotte telling him at Pinel.

"He cried and cried" at Pinel, Tanguay said. "He was sad, sad and remorseful."

Tearful Turcotte tells court of love for wife
May 9, 2011


Guy Turcotte, who has admitted killing his two children, and his estranged wife Isabelle Gaston.
Gaston told a packed courtoom on Thursday May 5, 2011 about the last time she saw her children
alive and how she learned of their gruesome deaths at the hands of their father.
Photograph by: File photo; Peter McCabe, Gazette; The Gazette

snipped . . . . .Turcotte, who has spent much of the trial crying in the prisoner’s box, was composed and calm while telling jurors about his childhood. But he choked up each time he discussed his love for Gaston or her feelings for him.

Turcotte said acrimony crept into their relationship shortly after they moved in together in 2000. Turcotte said he was bothered by the fighting, but Gaston assured him that “it was normal.”

Turcotte said he wasn’t so sure. In 2001, while on a trip to the U.S., Turcotte asked a pharmacist whom he respected whether she fought with her partner. When she said no, Turcotte said he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue his relationship with Gaston.

When he returned to Quebec City, where they were studying medicine, the couple had another fight that ended with their slapping each other.

Turcotte moved out, but the couple reconciled. Gaston, he testified, promised to work at the relationship and things improved.

That fall, on a trip to Mount Washington, N.H., Turcotte proposed to Gaston atop the mountain during a snowstorm.

“She said yes,” Turcotte testified as he fought back tears. “It was super romantic. I bought some champagne, and when we got back to the auberge I gave her the ring. Those are great memories, magical moments.”

Early Monday, Turcotte and Gaston sobbed as jurors were shown several photos depicting Turcotte as a loving and doting father.

The photos show Turcotte and his children at family birthday parties, hiking in Mont Tremblant and making sandcastles on a beach near Whistler, B.C.

Turcotte’s lawyer, Pierre Poupart, said the photos show that Turcotte adored his children and he could not have been in his right mind when he killed them in February 2009.

He said he will present evidence that Turcotte suffered from a mental disorder when he stabbed them to death.

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Turcotte feared losing his kids, court told
May 11, 2011



Guy Turcotte grew increasingly angry toward his wife, Isabelle Gaston, and fearful of losing his children in the hours before he killed them and tried to kill himself.

Late Wednesday, the cardiologist was about to describe the details of the tragic stabbing that happened between Feb. 20 and 21, 2009, when the defence called an adjourment until Thursday morning.

So far, the jury has heard how Turcotte, who’d left the family home Jan. 26, 2009, after learning of his wife’s affair with the couple’s personal trainer, felt his life crumbling around him.

During his three days on the witness stand, Turcotte repeatedly told the jury that he was angry, discouraged, freaked out and torn apart that Martin Huot had replaced him.

On Feb. 20, he barged into the family’s Prévost home after seeing Huot’s car in the driveway.

“(Isabelle) told me to stop controlling her life,” Turcotte said of Gaston, wiping tears from his eyes and blowing his nose. “She said she could change the children’s names and move with them anywhere in Quebec.”

Her words stayed with him all morning and panic grew as he worked at St. Jérôme’s Hotel Dieu Hospital, he said.

“She wanted to exclude me from family life,” he said of his wife of six years. “It tore me apart.

“I was going to lose all that remained and I freaked out.” The last straw happened later that day, after Turcotte had picked the children up from school and day care. He called Gaston to see if he could drop by the house and pick up the children’s snowshoes for the weekend and Gaston told him she’d changed the locks on the door.

“I was angry,” Turcotte said. “I’d lost my wife, had been betrayed by two people, lost half the time I’d spent with my children.”

He’d left the home to escape Gaston’s verbal attacks, but the threats continued through email, telephone and in person, he said.

“I said ‘if you want war, you’ll have war,’ ” he recalled.

At the children’s request, Turcotte stopped at a video store, rented some films and bought chips, then returned to the Piedmont home he’d rented a few weeks earlier.

The next day, police found the stabbed bodies of Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, in their beds. Turcotte was under his bed, covered in vomit and blood. He told police he’d drunk windshield wiper fluid and wanted to die.

Turcotte first took the stand Monday, the beginning of Week 4 of heart-wrenching testimony that has painted a portrait of a professional couple dealing with the daily stresses of raising children and juggling life.

Earlier Wednesday, Turcotte testified he was furious that Gaston took their two children to the Quebec Winter Carnival with Huot the weekend of Feb. 7 and 8.

“It should have been me there with my children,” Turcotte said. “Instead, Martin (Huot) was there in my place, and it tore me apart.”

That week, Turcotte made plans to pick up some furniture from the Prévost house, including the master bed.

“It was the only thing in the house I’d chose and bought myself,” he said. “I was the one who went to Sears and said I wanted this kind of mattress.”

At 4 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2009, Turcotte composed an email to Gaston and wrote “frustration” in the subject line.

“I only hope the two of you will remember for the rest of your lives what your actions will have done to my two innocent children,” he wrote.

The Crown and the defence acknowledge Turcotte, who is charged with first-degree murder, killed the children. What the jury must decide is whether he intended to kill them.

Turcotte will take the stand again Thursday.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Turcotte+feared+losing+kids+court+told/4764833/story.html

Juror dismissed from Turcotte trial
Murder case adjourned until Friday
May 12, 2011


A family photo shows murder defendant Guy Turcotte with his daughter Anne-Sophie
and his son Olivier at a birthday elebration.
Photograph by: Trial evidence, Courtesy of La Presse

A juror in the first-degree murder trial of cardiologist Guy Turcotte was dismissed Thursday after his fellow jurors decided he was biased against the accused.

At the end of an extremely emotional morning of testimony, during which Turcotte recounted how he'd stabbed his two children to death, the jury handed Quebec Superior Court Justice Marc David a note.

Juror No. 5, it said, seemed to have already made up his mind about Turcotte, and the 11 other jurors felt it important to tell the judge.

"We've tried to make him understand he had to wait until the end before deciding, but he said his mind is made up," the note said.

David met with juror No. 5 to get his side of the story and decided to let him go. The trial will continue Friday morning with 11 jurors. The minimum is 10.

Earlier Thursday, Turcotte's thin shoulders heaved in front of a packed and hushed courtroom as he struggled through his sobs to recount a night that will torture him forever.

"Olivier said, 'Nooooo' and he moved," the defendant said of his attack on his young son, barely able to get each word from his mouth. "I realized I was hurting him. I panicked and I stabbed him more.

"I was standing next to Anne-Sophie's bed. She was sleeping.

"The same thing happened. The same thing."

Turcotte, 39, recounted to Quebec Superior Court how, on Feb. 20, 2009, he'd taken the children, Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, to the home he had rented in Piedmont a month earlier after his acrimonious separation with his wife, Isabelle Gaston.

He fed the children spaghetti, watched Caillou cartoons with them, helped them into their pyjamas, and supervised tooth-brushing, then sang them songs while putting them to bed about their regular bedtime of 7 p.m.

Saddened by the turn his six-year marriage had taken, Turcotte read an email exchange between Gaston and her new lover, Martin Huot, who had been a mutual friend and personal trainer of the couple.

"It was clear they loved each other," he said, supporting his thin frame as he testified by leaning on the lecturn at the witness stand. "I'd never been loved that way, and it hurt."

Turcotte then surfed the Internet for ways to kill himself. He searched the basement for something toxic, but found nothing.

"At one point I had a big knife in my hand and was sharpening it and I took it in both hands and wanted to plunge it into my heart," he said Thursday, making a gesture as if to stab himself. But he stopped because he remembered Gaston, an emergency room doctor, telling him that a patient had once tried that, but didn't die.

Turcotte said the only thing he remembers is waking up in Sacré Coeur Hospital in Montreal. He has no recollection of being in Hôtel Dieu Hospital in St. Jérôme, where he was taken after police found him under his bed on Feb. 21, 2009.

Through his tears, Turcotte said he still can't understand how a father can kill his children.

"I live with those images and they terrorize me," he said on Day 16 of an extremely emotional trial that has heard close to 30 witnesses so far.

"I know I could never apologize for what happened," he continued. "Just to know the pain and suffering this whole story has caused, I can't accept it."

Throughout an hour of excruciating testimony recounting the final hours of the lives of Olivier and Anne-Sophie, the children's mother struggled to maintain her composure. Finally, when a break in the proceedings was announced, Gaston fled the room and collapsed in tears.

The Crown is to begin its cross-examination of Turcotte on Friday.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Juror+dismissed+from+Turcotte+trial/4771879/story.html

Crown questions Turcotte’s suicide attempt
May 14, 2011

Despite having an arsenal of potentially fatal medication at his disposal, cardiologist Guy Turcotte never thought of using it to kill himself and instead chose windshield-washer fluid that wouldn’t bring death for days.

After four days of excruciating testimony about how he tried to kill himself before stabbing his two young children to death, Turcotte came under the Crown’s spotlight Friday as the cross-examination got under way.

Prosecutor Claudia Carbonneau took the morning to lay the groundwork for what is sure to be an intense couple of days of questioning beginning Monday.

Quebec Superior Court heard Friday that Turcotte, 39, was the middle child in an evangelical family that attended mass every Sunday and didn’t speak about feelings or their personal lives. His parents participated in a weekly evening prayer group and recited the rosary as it was broadcast on the radio.

When Turcotte, who said his switch to atheism in adolescence caused his parents a lot of pain, decided to go to Quebec City for medical school, his parents worried that he would drift from the family. His mother, he said, was sad.

“My parents were concerned that I was doing something different than the rest of the family by going to university,” said Turcotte, more composed on the stand than he has been all week.

“I didn’t realize then what it meant to be a doctor and the perception people had of them.”

Court has already heard that Turcotte had been unhappy for years since his 2003 marriage to Isabelle Gaston, an emergency room doctor he met in medical school in 1999.

But he never thought about killing himself, he said, until 2007 when the couple’s incessant fighting over child care, household chores and work schedules grew unbearable.

“They were just passing thoughts,” he said, his eyes cast downward. “I didn’t think about suicide when I was (working) at the hospital.”

Nor did his suicidal thoughts at home push him to fetch a quick end in the form of pills from a pharmacy.

In 2007, Gaston rushed the couple’s youngest child, Anne-Sophie, not yet 2, to Ste. Justine Hospital after suspecting she’d drunk windshield-washer fluid. Turcotte didn’t accompany them, he said Friday, because he thinks he was looking after their son Olivier.

“I didn’t think she could die from that and we didn’t know if she had drunk it or how much,” he said.

Yet on Feb. 20, 2009, when Turcotte stabbed Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, he wanted to kill himself by drinking windshield-washer fluid.

“Is it a coincidence you used that, given that Anne-Sophie went to Ste. Justine’s for it?” Carbonneau asked.

“I didn’t connect the two,” Turcotte said. “She played with the jug (in 2007) and I thought of committing suicide.”

That evening, wallowing in his grief over Gaston’s three-month affair with the couple’s friend and personal trainer, Martin Huot, Turcotte surfed the Internet, looking for ways to kill himself. He looked up antifreeze and methanol – the toxic ingredient in windshield-washer fluid.

Police, called the next day to Turcotte’s rented Piedmont house after his mother was unable to contact him, found a blood- and vomit-covered Turcotte hiding under his bed.

The children’s bodies were found in their beds.

Turcotte, charged with first-degree murder, has already admitted he killed the children; the jury must only determine if he intended to.

The trial enters its fifth week Monday.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Crown+questions+Turcotte+suicide+attempt/4782446/story.html

Why we cover the Turcotte trial
Some readers say so, but there is a need to know about the ugliness of domestic violence
May 14, 2011


Guy Turcotte, who has admitted killing his two children, and his estranged wife Isabelle Gaston.
Gaston told a packed courtoom on Thursday May 5, 2011 about the last time she saw her children
alive and how she learned of their gruesome deaths at the hands of their father.
Photograph by: File photo; Peter McCabe, Gazette; The Gazette

There are some stories so heart-rending, so tragic, that we wish we could just ignore them and maybe they would go away. The trial of Guy Turcotte is such a story.

Turcotte has admitted to killing his two children, 5-year-old Olivier and 3-yearold Anne-Sophie. The trial is being held to determine whether he intended to kill them, and a jury has heard explicit, devastating testimony about the last minutes of the children's lives.

This kind of detail would be hard enough to read if it concerned the death of two adults. When it describes the fate of two tiny children, at the hands of a trusted parent, it stretches the limit of our ability and willingness to take it in.

Why, then, have we been writing about this trial almost every day for four weeks?

We have heard from readers who say it's too much - that our articles are unnecessarily graphic, that we're sensationalizing the whole story.

Even within our newsroom, some journalists are choosing not to read everything we publish on this. "I decide each day if I'm up to it," said one woman, the mother of two young children. "I read the first paragraph and then turned the page," a longtime editor said of a story two weeks ago that included the most detailed account yet of the children's deaths.

That particular story, based on harrowing testimony from a biologist and a pathologist, had been the subject of much discussion the previous night by the reporter covering the trial, the editor handling the article, the editor placing the story on the page, and me. At each stage of production, questions were raised about what to include and what was too much. We excluded a lot.

When we discussed the story again the next morning, after publication, several journalists said that even more of the details should have been taken out. But tellingly, there wasn't agreement on which ones: a detail that struck one person as overly graphic was considered heartbreaking but necessary by another.

Necessary for what? Perhaps to feel the full sorrow of these deaths. Perhaps it takes a case this extreme to force us to confront the full scale and ugliness of domestic violence in our society. And once we confront it, we want to believe it can be prevented. We want to believe that hearing the details might add something, no matter how small, to our understanding of how parents can kill their children when a marriage breaks down.

This is why we cover these stories - because when horrific things happen, and especially when there are innocent victims, we don't learn any lessons by shutting our eyes. As difficult as it is, we want to know what happened, and how it happened, as individuals and as a society. We don't honour the victims by ignoring the crimes; and we do nothing to prevent future horrors.

We know that some people feel very differently. On this story, as with other highprofile cases of victims and perpetrators, they just don't want to know more.

Others want to follow the coverage, but they want fewer details than we have included. When the day's testimony is especially difficult, we are trying to alert these readers in the way we word the headline, or in the first paragraphs of the story, so they can stop and turn their attention elsewhere.

While the coverage can be difficult to read, it is not sensationalist or exaggerated. Our society has an open court system where anyone can sit in a courtroom and listen to a case unfold; that's how we ensure that justice is seen to be done. Journalists who cover the courts are acting as the eyes and ears of the public who cannot easily be there. They report, as best they can, what is said in the courtroom - no more, and sometimes less for the sake of the readers.

We have received some messages saying our coverage is disrespectful to the families involved. Sue Montgomery, the Gazette reporter who has been in the courtroom almost every day of the trial, notes that the families are in the room, too, listening; they are hearing all the details, including those you won't read in our articles. "They want the public to know, too."

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/cover+Turcotte+trial/4783369/story.html#ixzz1MN7szWmC

Turcotte says he felt he was being replaced
May 16, 2011

Among the things Guy Turcotte took from his home to the furnished and fully equipped house he rented after his marital breakup was a wooden silverware box containing knives like the ones he used to kill his children.

The cardiologist packed his clothes and a few personal belongings on Jan. 26, 2009, when he left the home he shared with Isabelle Gaston, also a doctor, and moved to nearby Piedmont, Que., about 75 kilometres north of Montreal.

Two days earlier, the couple had returned from a Mexico vacation, their six-year acrimonious marriage in ruins because Turcotte had learned of Gaston's affair with the couple's personal trainer and friend, Martin Huot.

Less than a month later, Turcotte's children, Anne-Sophie, 3, and Olivier, 5, were found stabbed to death in their beds in the Piedmont home.

Police found Turcotte, who had tried to kill himself by drinking windshield wiper fluid, under his bed.

As the fifth week of his first-degree murder trial got under way Monday, Turcotte calmly and quietly recounted the anger and betrayal he'd felt when he learned of the affair, which began in October 2008.

It was in stark contrast to his three days on the stand last week when he could barely get his words out between convulsing sobs.

He said Monday that he felt he was being replaced in the family by Huot and was devastated to learn that the children had gone to Quebec Winter Carnival with Gaston and her new lover.

After that, Turcotte told Gaston he wanted the couple's bed, despite the fact he neither needed it nor had space for it in the Piedmont home. As a result, the mattresses and frame sat propped up against the dining room walls.

"I knew Martin slept in it," he said quietly, under cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Claudia Carbonneau.

"And that made you angry," Carbonneau said.

"Yes."

"And you weren't concerned that (Gaston) would be left with no bed," Carbonneau continued.

He hesitated to take it, Turcotte said, but decided she could use one of the spare single or double mattresses in the house.

Quebec Superior Court has heard that the couple, who met in medical school in 1999, fought often and that Gaston wondered if Turcotte might be gay. She found gay pornography on his computer more than a couple of times and once made an appointment for the couple to see a sexologist.

"I was ashamed," Turcotte said Monday of his wife's discovery. "She was afraid I'd leave her because I was gay.

"But I explained there was no danger of that since I liked women."

He said their lives together worsened with the arrival of children — Olivier in 2003 and Anne-Sophie in 2005.

They took a parenting course, but fought often over juggling household tasks and their demanding careers.

"She said I didn't pay attention to her and didn't meet her needs," he said, not once meeting Carbonneau's eyes. "I wasn't convinced but she believed it."

The Crown and defence have already admitted Turcotte killed the children; the jury must decide whether he intended to.

Carbonneau posed the question that has been on many minds since the beginning of this dramatic trial: Why?

"You had no financial problems, you had a good career as a doctor with a good salary, shared custody and were buying a house," she said.

"You think that a good salary and career prevents me from feeling pain and being demolished by what happened?" he said. "Excuse me, but that doesn't console me."

Turcotte's cross-examination continues.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/Father+trial+murder+felt+being+replaced/4793706/story.html#ixzz1MZRLjCpm

'I was in despair,' killer testifies
May 17, 2011


A family photo shows murder defendant Guy Turcotte with his daughter Anne-Sophie and his son Olivier at a birthday celebration.

Wallowing in his pain over the failure of his marriage, Guy Turcotte didn't have the energy to give his children a bath or put them in their pyjamas the night he stabbed them to death in their beds.

Anne-Sophie, 3, and Olivier, 5, must have been in bed before 6:24 p.m. on Feb. 20, 2009, the night of their deaths, because that's when Turcotte checked his email and surfed the Internet for suicide methods, his first-degree murder trial was told Tuesday.

The 39-year-old cardiologist, who'd just moved out of the family home in Prévost a few weeks earlier, was feeling sad that his wife, Isabelle Gaston, was involved with Martin Huot, a mutual friend of the couple's.

He read a string of romantic emails between the two, knowing full well the content would feed his depressed state.

"When you read these emails, didn't they make you angry?" crown prosecutor Claudia Carbonneau asked Turcotte during the third day of cross examination.

"When you're completely destroyed, it takes a lot of energy to be angry," Turcotte said in a calm, soft voice. "At that moment, I was in despair."

Turcotte has already admitted he killed the children; the jury must determine if he intended to do so.

Carbonneau tried to get Turcotte to explain what happened that night to push him over the edge. After all, she said, the couple had been fighting for several months, and despite his pain, Turcotte was still able to go to work and function normally. He was managing the situation, she said.

Turcotte acknowledged that learning that day that Gaston had changed the locks on the family home set him off. Turcotte also mistakenly thought Huot had looked after the children the night before when Gaston, an emergency room doctor, was on call.

All he wanted to do was die, Turcotte said. He grabbed a long kitchen knife and thought of plunging it into his heart, but then remembered Gaston telling him of a patient who'd tried that, but didn't die.

Instead, Turcotte drank windshield wiper fluid by the glassful.

He doesn't remember calling the real estate agent to cancel his appointment the next day, or calling the babysitter to say she wouldn't be needed. An hour-long conversation with his mother seemed to last just a few seconds, he said.

While drinking the purple liquid, it dawned on Turcotte that his children would wake up and find him dead.

"That's when I said, 'I'll take them with me,' " he said.

The cross examination continues Tuesday afternoon.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/despair+killer+Turcotte+testifies/4797977/story.html

Turcotte murder trial adjourns till Thursday
May 18, 2011

Guy Turcotte's first-degree murder trial adjourned for the day at noon Wednesday after lawyers spent the morning arguing legal points without the jury present.

The trial is to resume Thursday, its 22nd day - when testimony is expected to reveal more sordid details of infidelity, arguments and secret emails that ended a marriage and ultimately cost two children their lives.

Turcotte, a cardiologist at St. Jérôme's Hôtel Dieu Hospital, has admitted to fatally stabbing his two children, Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie 3. What the seven-woman, four-man jury must decide is whether Turcotte intended to kill.

(One juror was dismissed last week for being biased against the accused.)

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Turcotte+murder+trial+adjourns+till+Thursday/4804304/story.html#ixzz1MlMKAmtJ

Guy Turcotte obsessed with money after children's slayings
'I knew my children were dead and that I'd done it.'
May 20, 2011


A family photo introduced as evidence shows Guy Turcotte carrying his daughter, Anne-Sophie,
during a visit atop Whistler Mountain in British Columbia in 2006.

After his arrest in the killing of his two young children, cardiologist Guy Turcotte grew obsessed with money and focused on putting his financial affairs in order.

In his sparsely furnished isolation cell at the Philippe Pinel Institute, Turcotte composed a three-page list of things his parents should fetch from the home he rented in Piedmont, including two soap pumps and a bag of potatoes.

There was also a pot he’d bought at Club Price, which he’d never used and for which he still had the packaging, so his mother suggested she return it to the store for him.

He also wanted the spa certificate he’d given his wife, Isabelle Gaston, for Christmas.

“I was obsessed with money because I didn’t have any,” Turcotte told his first-degree murder trial Thursday.

The 39-year-old testified that while in Pinel for a psychiatric evaluation, the non-stop images of his dead children swirled in his head and terrified him.

“I was in a state of distress like never before,” Turcotte said. “I screamed and yelled that I wanted to die.

“I knew my children were dead and I knew that I’d done it and I couldn’t stand it.”

The tragedy seemed to be triggered by the sudden and painful end of Turcotte’s six-year stormy marriage after he discovered that Gaston, also a doctor, was having an affair with Martin Huot, a friend and personal trainer of the couple.

The night of Feb. 20, 2009, Turcotte fell further into despair after reading a series of romantic emails between the two. He tried killing himself by drinking windshield-wiper fluid then, realizing the children would wake up to find him dead, he decided to “take them with me.”

He stabbed Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, several times, despite the little ones’ protests.

He was arrested the next day and soon had four lawyers on the payroll to deal with his crumbling life: one for his defence, one for his divorce, one to arrange his parent’s access to the Piedmont home and one to deal with his expulsion from the Quebec College of Physicians and Surgeons.

He removed Gaston as beneficiary of his life insurance, and added his parents. He stopped all pre-authorized withdrawals from his bank account. He spoke to his financial adviser about adjusting his RRSP portfolio toward less risky investments.

Turcotte called his father and told him to reclaim a gift certificate to a spa that the doctor had given his wife for Christmas.

“I realized it had been a mistake to buy her that because by Christmas, she’d already betrayed me,” he said. “So I decided I’d give it to someone in my family instead.”

His family should also take advantage of or give away four tickets to a show in Laval by popular pop singer Marie-Mai that Turcotte had bought for Gaston and their children.

Also on his to-do list was to call Patricia Giroux’s father to get her to forward the romantic emails between Huot, Giroux’s ex-husband, and Gaston. It was those emails that Turcotte read on his computer the night he killed the children. He’s testified that the content fed his anger and said Thursday his lawyer had asked to see the correspondence.

Also Thursday, court heard the recording of a message Turcotte left March 1, 2009 – just over a week after the killings – at St. Jérôme’s Hotel Dieu Hospital where he worked as a cardiologist. His upbeat and clear voice asks his colleague to check for bills in the top drawer of his desk and to file for expenses on his behalf.

He explains he’ll speak quickly because he knows there’s not much space on the message machine and asks the recipient to say hi to everyone for him. He compliments her on her smile and tells her to thank another woman who always listened to him. The message cuts off before he can finish.

By November, Turcotte said he finally figured out how to kill himself while in detention at Rivière des Prairies – hoard his daily medication then take it in one gulp. But the Valium-like pills just knocked him out for a few days and he was returned to Pinel.

The Crown and defence agree that Turcotte killed his children. The jury must decide whether he intended to.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Turcotte+obsessed+with+money+after+children+slayings/4810027/story.html


This is a recording of the message Guy Turcotte left at the hospital while in custody after the the death of his two children.

Turcottemessage by Montreal Gazette

Methanol an ineffective suicide method, murder trial told
May 20, 2011



Little has been written on the effects of methanol on the human brain and body.

That's because few people drink windshield-wiper fluid or solvents made with methanol voluntarily, and it's not a very effective means of committing suicide, said Louis Leonard, a pharmacist testifying in the murder trial of Guy Turcotte.

Out of 2,000 to 2,500 annual cases of methanol poisoning in the U.S., only four per cent were attempted suicides and just six per cent of those attempts were successful.

"It's not a winning combination," Leonard said.

It was a surprising admission for an expert witness called by the defence to shed light on how a doctor like Turcotte, 39, could stab his two young children to death and hours later report being unable to remember exactly what he had done.

The jury had already heard that sometime between the night of Feb. 20 and the morning of Feb. 21, 2009, Turcotte, distraught at the end of his six-year marriage and his wife's infidelity, drank windshield-wiper fluid to kill himself.

But he couldn't remember how much, or exactly when.

He had only flashes of memory from that night, he testified.

Police found Turcotte, 39, covered in vomit and blood hiding under his bed in his rented Piedmont, Que., home. A 3.87-litre jug of windshield-wiper fluid, with about a sixth of the fluid left, was found beside the bathtub in his home.

Turcotte pleaded with police not to treat him and to let him die. A blood sample taken later that day at the St-Jerome hospital, where Turcotte and his wife worked, revealed a very high concentration of methanol in his blood — 310 mg of methanol for 100 ml of blood.

Leonard told the jury that methanol, or methyl alcohol, is in fact similar in its effects to the kind of alcohol more often consumed, though it is at first less powerful. One would have to ingest roughly three glasses of methanol to produce the same effects as one glass of ethyl alcohol. Like spirits, it can, in large quantities, cause someone to lose their motor co-ordination and inhibitions, and cause their brain functioning to slow down.

And it can affect someone's judgment and memory, Leonard said.

Unlike alcohol, which eventually transforms into harmless vinegar in the human body and is eliminated, methanol turns first into formaldehyde — the kind used to pickle lab frogs — then into formic acid, which can be deadly, Leonard said.

Somewhere between one hour and 72 hours after ingesting a large amount of methanol, a patient would begin to show signs of formic acid intoxication, or acidosis, which can include digestive problems, blindness, memory loss and, eventually, death.

In one case study cited by Leonard, 323 people were admitted to a hospital with methanol poisoning, the result of ingesting "bad alcohol" or moonshine. Some showed effects akin to a hangover; others were in a coma. But several told doctors they could not remember the circumstances that led to them being hospitalized, even though they could still walk and talk.

Leonard will resume his testimony on Tuesday.

Both the Crown and defence agree Turcotte killed his children; the question is whether he intended to kill them.

Turcotte has testified that in a moment of great despair, he wanted to kill himself and "bring the children with me" so they wouldn't find him dead.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Methanol+ineffective+suicide+method+murder+trial+told/4819521/story.html#ixzz1N02jVxJY

Defence cites mental illness
Psychiatrist's testimony to continue
May 27, 2011

Cardiologist Guy Turcotte was in the midst of a severe mental illness triggered by his marital breakdown when he killed his two children, an expert for the defence testified Thursday.

Psychiatrist Dominique Bourget said Turcotte, 39, was deeply depressed and anxious after his six-year dysfunctional marriage to Isabelle Gaston ended when she took up with the couple's personal trainer, Martin Huot. Turcotte, who moved out of the family's Piedmont home less than a month before the killings, felt Huot was replacing him as father.

After two meetings with Turcotte a year after the 2009 slayings, Bourget concluded that the cardiologist found it difficult to accept and admit that he was deeply depressed in the weeks leading up to the night of Feb. 20, 2009.

A crucial turning point for Turcotte, according to Bourget, was when he read a series of romantic emails that night between Gaston and her lover, Huot.

"What he told me was this made him think of suicide," said Bourget, who works at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. "And that became his preoccupation, his obsession.

"From that moment on, all he has are flashes."

Turcotte remembers gulping windshield-wiper fluid by the glassful, but can't remember where he got it or how much he drank. He remembers stabbing Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, several times, despite their moans and his realization he was hurting them.

Turcotte has testified and told Bourget that he killed the children because he didn't want them to wake up and find their father dead.

"I find it absolutely horrible and tragic, but as a clinician I find it interesting he wanted to take his children with him, then freaked out when he realized what he was doing. It shows at which point his brain wasn't functioning normally, in my opinion."

Bourget said there could be a couple of explanations for the gaps in Turcotte's memories from that tragic night. The methanol in the windshield-wiper fluid may have caused amnesia. Or he may have been in such a deep depression and so preoccupied with his life that he had trouble concentrating.

Bourget said that during her meetings with Turcotte, he cried a lot and seemed extremely sad. He told her that when he was 12 or 13 he was molested by a stranger. Turcotte told his mother, an ultra-religious woman who attended mass daily, and a report was made to police.

He also told Bourget that his parents, who were raised on farms, weren't thrilled when their son was accepted to medical school. His mother worried that Turcotte would distance himself from the family and that he'd be part of the upper class.

The first-degree murder trial will wrap up its sixth week Friday with the continuation of Bourget's testimony.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Defence+cites+mental+illness/4846636/story.html

Mental illness behind killings, Turcotte trial told
May 31, 2011


A family photo introduced as evidence earlier in the trial shows Guy Turcotte carrying his daughter,
Anne-Sophie, during a visit atop Whistler Mountain in British Columbia in 2006.


Two hands on the knife. Olivier on his side. A child moaning “noooo.”

Despite all those details that cardiologist Guy Turcotte was able to recall after he slayed his own children, a psychiatrist Tuesday maintained the father’s brain was not functioning properly.

“It was a family drama in which the victims died, unfortunately,” Dominique Bourget testified under cross examination by the Crown at Turcotte’s first-degree murder trial. “In my opinion, it was the (mental) illness that was very instrumental in all of it.”

Under questioning by prosecutor Marie-Nathalie Tremblay, Bourget explained why she left out certain details in her evaluation of Turcotte, written after two meetings with him a year after the February 2009 killings.

Bourget concluded that Turcotte was severely depressed over his marriage breakup and could not appreciate the nature or consequences of his actions when he stabbed Anne-Sophie, 3, and Olivier, 5, several times.

“I put things in that report that supported my opinion,” said Bourget, who was hired by Turcotte’s team of defence lawyers. “I wanted people to know where I was coming from when I wrote it.”

Tremblay pointed out, for example, that in an email exchange with his wife Isabelle Gaston before the slayings, Turcotte uses at least 21 words associated with anger and rage, and only 10 words meaning hurt. Yet very little mention of this anger appears in Bourget’s report.

“It’s not a question of how often he says something,” Bourget said. “We don’t count words when doing a diagnosis.”

Bourget said Turcotte became extremely suicidal the night of Feb. 20, 2009, after reading the emails between Gaston and her lover, Martin Huot, a mutual friend of the couple. He drank windshield wiper fluid in a failed attempt to kill himself.

Why, Tremblay wanted to know, was there no mention of Turcotte complaining about Gaston to a nurse while he was being treated in hospital after his arrest the next day? “Do you have any idea what she puts me through?” the nurse quoted Turcotte as saying.

That statement, Bourget replied, didn’t add anything to her report that she already had from others.

“If there had been a detail that would have changed my opinion one way or another, I would have written it in my report,” she said.

When Turcotte spoke to the children’s babysitter after the tragedy about wanting to commit a “similar scenario” a couple of years earlier, Bourget said Turcotte was referring to wanting to kill himself, not the children. But the psychiatrist admitted to not having asked Turcotte the question directly.

“He didn’t understand how he could have done what he did,” she said. “It was clear that in the past he’d never thought of hurting his children.”

Bourget said that even though Turcotte had been unhappy in his marriage for several years, he was still able to enjoy his work and time spent with his children, which indicates he wasn’t in the depths of a major depression.

But stresses were added to that unhappiness, like learning of the affair, moving out of the family home and feeling replaced by Huot. Turcotte suffered from an adjustment disorder that caused him to lose touch with reality, Bourget concluded.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Mental+illness+behind+killings+Turcotte+trial+told/4870157/story.html

Turcotte unable to judge lethal actions, psychiatrist tells trial
June 1, 2011


Murder defendant Guy Turcotte had the classic symptoms of depression:
trouble sleeping, loss of appetite and lack of energy, a psychiatrist testified Wednesday.

Cardiologist Guy Turcotte was so depressed the night he stabbed his children to death he was unable to judge the nature of his actions, a psychiatrist testified Wednesday at the father's first-degree murder trial.

Roch-Hugo Bouchard is the second psychiatrist called by the defence to say Turcotte, 39, couldn't cope with the sudden changes in his life, such as the discovery of his wife having an affair with the couple's personal trainer, Martin Huot.

The night of Feb. 20, 2009, less than a month after moving out of the family's Prévost home, Turcotte stabbed Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, numerous times.

Turcotte had the classic symptoms of depression: trouble sleeping, loss of appetite, loss of energy, Bouchard said on the 30th day of the trial.

"It's a bit like being in sinking sand."

Bouchard said Turcotte's sadness throughout the six-year marriage to Isabelle Gaston began to deepen into a depression in December, 2008, when Gaston had cosmetic surgery despite Turcotte's protests.

Then Gaston took the children to Cuba over Christmas, when Turcotte was on call at St. Jérôme's Hotel Dieu Hospital. Christmas was an important holiday for Turcotte and he felt it should be celebrated together as a family, testified Bouchard, who met with Turcotte at the Rivière des Prairies Detention Centre March 4, 2011.

Finally, when they rang in 2009 in Montreal with Huot and his wife, Patricia Giroux, Turcotte felt his wife was having fun with everyone but him.

"After 2008, something broke and things got much more difficult," said Bouchard, who was been hired by Turcotte's defence team.

A key date in Turcotte's downward spiral was Jan. 14, 2009, when Giroux informed Turcotte she'd discovered a string of romantic emails between their spouses.

"He was very angry and devastated," Bouchard said. "The day before, he didn't think it was possible (that his wife was having an affair) and now the proof was before him."

The trial continues Wednesday.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Turcotte+unable+judge+lethal+actions+psychiatrist+tells+trial/4874922/story.html

Weight of Guy Turcotte's woes led to killing children: psychiatrist
Deep depression; 'He couldn't take any more'
June 2, 2011

Cardiologist Guy Turcotte wasn't suffering from schizophrenia, psychosis, manic depression or a personality disorder the night he stabbed his children to death.

The 39-year-old had always been in good physical health, had a flawless work record, and had never dabbled in drugs or delinquency as a teen.

So what possessed him on Feb. 20, 2009, to grip a knife with two hands and plunge it repeatedly into the tiny torsos of his children, Olivier, 5 and Anne-Sophie, 3, despite their painful moans?

He just couldn't take it any more. That was the conclusion drawn by Roch-Hugo Bouchard, a psychiatrist hired by the defence who spent more than two hours with Turcotte March 4 at the Rivière des Prairies detention centre.

Bouchard is the second psychiatrist called by the defence to say Turcotte, who is on trial for firstdegree murder, couldn't cope with the sudden changes in his life, such as the discovery of his wife having an affair with the couple's personal trainer, Martin Huot.

Turcotte had the classic symptoms of depression: trouble sleeping, loss of appetite, loss of energy, Bouchard said on the 30th day of the trial.

"It's a bit like being in sinking sand," Bouchard said. "The more he tries to get out, the more stuck he feels."

He said Turcotte's sadness throughout the six-year marriage to Isabelle Gaston began to deepen into a depression in December 2008, and that downward spiral was triggered by three events: Gaston had cosmetic surgery despite Turcotte's protests, Gaston took the children to Cuba over Christmas, when Turcotte was on call at St. Jérôme's Hotel Dieu Hospital and a disastrous New Year's Eve night on the town with another couple.

Christmas was an important holiday for Turcotte and he felt that it should be celebrated together as a family, testified Bouchard, who is an assistant director at the Institute for Mental Health in Quebec City.

When Turcotte and Gaston rang in 2009 at a bar with Huot and his wife, Patricia Giroux, Turcotte felt Gaston was having fun with everyone but him.

"After 2008, something broke and things got much more difficult," Bouchard said.

A key date in Turcotte's decline into despair was Jan. 14, 2009, when Giroux informed Turcotte she'd discovered a string of romantic emails between their spouses.

"He was very angry and devastated," Bouchard said. "The day before, he didn't think it was possible (that his wife was having an affair) and now the proof was before him."

Turcotte felt as though he'd been replaced as a father, husband and friend.

The night he killed the children, Turcotte was exhausted, sad and weak, said Bouchard, who was in the courtroom through most of Turcotte's two weeks of testimony.

"It was the accumulation of everything on his shoulders and he couldn't take any more," Bouchard said.

As a result, Turcotte was incapable of judging the nature of his actions.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Weight+father+woes+killing+children+psychiatrist/4878205/story.html

Guy Turcotte lacked brain chemical serotonin, psychiatrist tells trial
June 2, 2011


Guy Turcotte holds his daughter, Anne-Sophie, when she was a year old.
A phsychiatrist testified Thursday that Turcotte lacked serotonin, a brain
chemical that regulates emotions, when he fatally tabbed his two children.

Cardiologist Guy Turcotte lacked the chemical serotonin, which regulates emotions in our brain, when he stabbed his two young children to death, according to the psychiatrist testifying for the defence.

Roch-Hugo Bouchard said although the chemical was never measured in Turcotte, he was displaying all the symptoms of a serotonin deficit: fatigue, sadness, lack of judgment.

Turcotte, 39, is being tried for the first-degree murder of Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, whom he stabbed several times Feb. 20, 2009, shortly after the breakup of his marriage. The cardiologist drank windshield wiper fluid in a failed attempt to kill himself and the defence contends the liquid, as well as Turcotte's severely depressed state, rendered him incapable of knowing what he was doing.

Bouchard said he tasted windshield wiper fluid himself, just to see what Turcotte would have tasted.

"It's horrible," he said. "It's not something you'd drink like tea."

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Turcotte+lacked+brain+chemical+psychiatrist+tells+trial/4881096/story.html

Sadness overwhelmed Turcotte: psychiatrist


Guy Turcotte holds is daughter, Anne-Sophie, who was one-year-old. A phsychiatrist testitified Thursday June 2, 2011 that Turcotte lacked serotonin, a brain chemical that regulates emotions, when he stabbed his two children.

If cardiologist Guy Turcotte was so depressed and lethargic in the days before he killed his children, where did he summon the energy to buy a house, go to work, exercise and move his things, the crown prosecutor in his murder trial asked Thursday.

"He was trying to control his suffering and pain," replied psychiatrist Roch-Hugo Bouchard, testifying for the defence on Day 31 of one of the most emotional and intense trials to pass through a Quebec courtroom. "That's the sadness of a depressed person.

"He continued in the same way, ruminating about the same difficult things, doing the same things."

Turcotte's sleep problems - another symptom of depression - began Jan. 26, 2009, when he moved out of the family's Prévost home and into a rented house in Piedmont, Bouchard said.

Yet he was still able to rent a truck to move some things from the family home and sign an offer of purchase on a house, crown prosecutor Claudia Carbonneau said.

"He was more at ease with process and when things were planned, organized," she stated. "When he has a goal, he likes to reach it.

"And when he did things, there were steps to follow."

"Yes, cardiology is like that," Bouchard responded.

Finally, on Feb. 20, 2009, after working all day at St. Jérôme's Hôtel Dieu Hospital and picking up the children from daycare, Turcotte tried to kill himself by drinking windshield wiper fluid. He's testified that when he realized Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, would wake up to find him dead, he decided "to take them with me" by stabbing them multiple times.

Turcotte showed a lot of anger and frustration toward his wife, Isabelle Gaston, Carbonneau pointed out during cross-examination of Bouchard.

Yes, replied Bouchard, but his overriding emotion was extreme sadness at having lost his wife to another man, who was also his friend.

Turcotte didn't kill his children out of vengeance toward Gaston, he testified, reading from a report he prepared after a two-hour interview with Turcotte March 4, just before the first-degree murder trial began.

Rather, Turcotte was in such a profound depression, compounded by the effects of the methanol he drank, that he couldn't see that what he was doing was wrong.

Instead, he saw the killing of his children as part of one big act of suicide, Bouchard said.

His suicide method of choice wasn't the most palatable, Bouchard noted, adding he himself recently tried it to see if it was as disgusting as Turcotte had claimed.

"It's a bit like cod liver oil," he said. "It's not something you'd drink like tea."

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Sadness+overwhelmed+Turcotte+psychiatrist/4884427/story.html