A New Kind of Monster

by Timothy Appleby

  The meeting wrapped up mid-afternoon and later he had dinner at a restaurant with his wife, kissing her goodbye and then heading back to Tweed, he said. But in an odd memory lapse, he was unable to tell Detective Sergeant Jim Smyth where the couple had dinner, even when pressed, except to say that it was somewhere in Westboro, the upscale Ottawa neighborhood where their new house was being built, now nearing completion. Nor could he remember who paid for the meal, only that it would have been paid with MasterCard.

  On November 25—the same day Comeau’s battered and bloodied body was discovered in her home—Williams took part in a charity stunt that in hindsight can only be described as grotesque. As the 8 Wing commander usually did, he lent his weight to Trenton’s annual United Way fundraiser. In a corny but effective attention-getter known as Jail ’n’ Bail, organized at numerous workplaces across Canada, bosses and celebrities get rounded up and “arrested” on absurd charges, sometimes by good-humored cops. From a mock jail, the prisoners then frantically appeal to friends and colleagues to bail them out, and the money goes to charity. Williams cheerfully pitched in. He was arrested on a charge of being “too young to be a wing commander” (he was forty-six), while Lt. Col. Sean Lewis, 8 Wing’s Logistics and Engineering Officer, was accused of “having a full length mirror in his office and looking at it too often.” Under the caption “Jail and Bail event locks up the worst Wing offenders,” the December 4 edition of 8 Wing’s weekly newspaper carried a picture of Williams grinning into the camera, his hands tied behind his back.

  It was not long before official word of Comeau’s murder reached the base commander. Before he confessed, Williams told police he wasn’t sure when and where he found out—an astonishing gap in the memory of such an efficient, detail-oriented commander—but emails obtained under an Access to Information request show that a few minutes after midnight on Thursday, November 26, he was informed there had been “a significant occurrence” and that Corporal Comeau was dead. From his Tweed cottage, Williams acknowledged the news at 6:40 a.m., firing off a rather antiseptic message in reply. “Understood. Thank you,” he typed on his BlackBerry. “I’ll catch up when I get in, if there is additional information.” He then drove to the base in Trenton.

  Over the course of the day, numerous emails went back and forth between the senior 8 Wing officers, who were dealing not only with the police who had carriage of the investigation and were trying to reach Comeau’s next of kin, but also with a flurry of media calls. Late in the morning, a press release went out from the base, after a couple of minor amendments by Williams. He corrected Comeau’s first name to read Marie-France instead of Marie, and the reference to 437 Squadron, to which she belonged, was changed to read “437 (Transport) Squadron.” Early in the afternoon, the 8 Wing military police commander emailed him a news update from The Trentonian newspaper’s website, and Williams replied with an assurance that if he learned anything new, “I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  Williams’s breathtaking sangfroid held firm over the next few days. Comeau’s funeral, which he did not attend, was held on December 4 at the National Military Cemetery in Ottawa. Hundreds of friends, family and military personnel were there, including both Alain Plante, her former longtime boyfriend, and Paul Bélanger, whom she had been seeing more recently. Padre Paul-Alain Monpas delivered the eulogy, lauding the murdered soldier’s accomplishments, her great sense of adventure and her integrity and devotion to duty. “Marie’s respect for those around her aided her career in the military,” the pastor said. “She always found the words for those having difficulty. She was never scared to get involved, she was full of talent, and whoever knew her can say she made a difference in their lives. Marie, a ray of sunshine to her friends and family, embarked on a lifelong quest to seek truth in her life. She lived her life to the fullest.”

  Other tributes were paid, and Williams had made a contribution too. Earlier in the week, he had written to Comeau’s father on his official letterhead, expressing his condolences on behalf of the 8 Wing base. “Please let me know whether there is anything I can do to help you during this very difficult time,” he concluded. “You and your family are in our thoughts and prayers. With our deepest sympathy …”

  After the funeral, he was given an update by a senior officer who was there. “I’m pleased to hear that the service went as well as could be expected, given the very sad circumstances,” Williams replied in an email. “Take care. Russ.” He had spent the day in Trenton, attending another charity function, and at a turkey-carving later in the day, smiling broadly, he posed for a shot with the youngest private at the base, who was declared honorary Wing Commander for the Day.

  On December 8, a memorial service for Comeau was held at the 8 Wing chapel. Williams did not attend that ceremony either, possibly because he was flying. At around that time, early in December, he helped pilot an Airbus 130 on the Germany–Ottawa–Trenton leg of a return trip from Camp Mirage in the U.A.E. Garrett Lawless had brought the plane from Mirage and the flight home marked the last time he chatted to Williams before the arrest. It would also be Williams’s last overseas trip, though he flew at least once to Edmonton over the Christmas holidays, always a busy time at an air base. Designed for medium- and long-haul flights, the wide-bodied Airbus was bringing home twenty or so assorted celebrities who’d been entertaining the Canadian troops in Kandahar with a morale-booster: folk singer Bruce Cockburn; retired hockey great Guy Lafleur; Canadian Football League hall-of-famer Peter Dalla Riva. Williams was introduced to them and was his usual courteous self, but he seemed subdued. “In hindsight, I remember he was very twitchy, though he may just have been tired,” Lawless remarks. “He talked about how he was going to miss flying if he was further promoted or transferred, because very rarely does a full colonel have an operational flying position. Flying to Trenton from Ottawa, I remember him saying his favorite time to fly was at night because the air was so smooth.”

  Right around that same time, on December 6, he and Harriman took possession of their new house in Ottawa. They had already sold the home on Wilkie Drive in Orleans, where they had lived for fourteen years, and now they were relocating to Westboro, an established upscale neighborhood a few minutes’ drive from the city center. Former neighbors on Wilkie Drive say the upkeep on the old house had become too time-consuming for the couple and their busy schedules, but the move also shortened the commute for Harriman, whose offices are situated in a downtown high-rise office tower.

  Most of the homes on Edison Avenue have been there for many years, but like the property next door, number 473 was brand new, purchased from the Prestwick Building Corporation. For $693,819, Williams and Harriman got a three-story, three-bedroom townhouse comprising 2,200 square feet. As often happens with new houses, completion ran a bit behind schedule, so Harriman had stayed with friends for a few weeks after selling the Orleans property, while Williams had lived in Tweed.

  On December 15, Williams welcomed the Olympic torch when it stopped at Trenton en route to the Olympic Games in Vancouver. In all, fourteen military bases took part in the ritual. “It’s very exciting to be a part of this,” he said.

  In the December 18 issue of Contact, his Christmas message to the men and women under his command urged them to “reflect upon our collective accomplishments and to look toward the future.” He and Chief Warrant Officer Kevin West listed some of 8 Wing’s achievements for the year: “We have maintained the support lifeline to our mission in Afghanistan, saved fellow Canadians through Search and Rescue operations, conducted all aspects of Air Mobility support, whether VIP or materiel transport, and returned to Canada our fallen [soldiers] with honour and dignity.” With the approach of Christmas, Williams concluded, “We know that many of you will be thinking of our comrades serving elsewhere, away from their loved ones. We thank you for the support we know you will provide their families here at home.”

  Christmas came and went, then New Year’s Eve, which Williams marked by attending two parties at the 8 Wing off
icers’ mess—a formal, dress-kit function followed by a more relaxed get-together with some of the civilians attached to the base. He stayed for a drink and then departed.

  January 3 saw one of the largest-ever repatriation ceremonies to stem from the Afghan conflict. In a biting wind, Williams watched as the coffins of Sergeant George Miok, Sergeant Kirk Taylor, Private Garrett Chidley, all from the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and Corporal Zachary McCormack, a reservist with the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, were unloaded. And there was a fifth coffin, that of award-winning journalist Michelle Lang, seconded to the Canadian Press from the Calgary Herald and reporting from the Kandahar area for less than three weeks before she was killed. Lang had been traveling with the others when their armored vehicle was ripped apart by a roadside bomb.

  The New Year brought fresh demands for 8 Wing. Along with its ongoing, multi-million-dollar infrastructure expansion and the ceaseless back-and-forth supply mission to Afghanistan, it was gearing up to provide air support for security operations at the Vancouver Olympics. As well, the seventeen-strong fleet of new CC-130J Hercules transport planes was soon to start arriving. Williams told the Belleville Intelligencer that his first half year as wing commander had been “a lot of fun, but very, very busy, some major pieces are getting under way.” One of the big challenges, he said—probably the biggest—was juggling day-to-day operational needs with the big infrastructure changes afoot at 8 Wing in the shape of new roads and buildings. He also offered thanks to the people of Trenton and Belleville: “What has really impressed me in the last few months is how outstanding the support from the local community continues to be. I can think of very few events that have been less than positive.”

  On January 5, 2010, he attended the swearing-in ceremony of Belleville’s new deputy chief of police, Paul Vandegraaf, where he mingled and spoke with the police officers and other dignitaries.

  Then, on January 12, a huge earthquake devastated Haiti, killing more than 230,000 people and posing a major, obviously unforeseen challenge for CFB Trenton, which overnight became ground zero for relief operations and Canada’s Disaster Assistance Response Team. Operation Hestia, as the Canadian Forces humanitarian response to the earthquake was dubbed, was a very big deal for Canada in general and for 8 Wing in particular, which was the main point of departure for a 2,500-mile “air bridge” linking Canada and Haiti via Jamaica. As the base funneled the first of two thousand troops and hundreds of tons of food, water and medical supplies to the stricken country, on January 17 it was toured and praised by Defence Minister Peter MacKay and General Walter Natynczyk, Chief of the Defence Staff, Canada’s top soldier. Other visitors included Chief of the Air Staff Lieutenant-General André Deschamps along with Honorary Colonel Pamela Wallin, who spoke of being struck by “the incredible amount of energy here.”

  Other, less urgent matters helped fill up the colonel’s calendar. On Wednesday, January 27, he attended a meeting for the 8 Wing museum’s board of directors, where it was proposed that a memorial wall be erected to honor the Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Williams suggested that some sort of finance committee be set up to examine costs.

  And amid the hectic schedule, there was special recognition for the base commander. At a black-tie dinner on January 15, Deschamps presented Williams with the Canadian Forces Decoration First Clasp, marking his twenty-two years of “faithful service.” The award was a kind of upgrade for a medal he had already received, fastened to his chest alongside the South-West Asia Service Medal he’d been awarded for his work in Camp Mirage and Afghanistan. Presented after a town hall meeting at an 8 Wing gymnasium, the recognition apparently came as a surprise to the colonel, but he was unfazed. The career soldier and pilot who a few weeks earlier had raped and murdered a corporal under his command, and who two weeks later would rape and kill another woman, smirked into the camera.

  12

  ROADBLOCK

  Snow lay on the ground and a raw February wind whipped across the surrounding farmland as the police cruisers maneuvered into position, blocking the two-lane highway in each direction. A checkpoint was being set up, with cars from two police forces, the Belleville Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police. Behind the wheel of one of the OPP cars that pulled up was Constable Russell Alexander, a career officer from the small Madoc detachment who was nearing retirement. He stepped out onto the asphalt.

  It was this same constable who in late October had suspected Larry Jones, Williams’s next-door neighbor, of being responsible for the twin home-invasion sexual assaults on and near Cosy Cove Lane, and his presence at the roadblock may have been a coincidence. But what was rapidly becoming clear in the fast-widening investigation was that those two attacks were almost certainly linked to the recent mysterious disappearance of a popular young Belleville woman, and that the unsolved murder of Corporal Marie-France Comeau two months earlier in Brighton was probably part of the picture too.

  This was an early Thursday evening, February 4, 2010, around seven o’clock, and the checkpoint on Belleville’s northern outskirts, where Highway 37 stretches toward the sleepy village of Tweed, was what’s termed a rolling roadblock. Mobile and set up without warning, rolling roadblocks are routinely deployed in rural Ontario to nab drinking drivers and—increasingly, under toughened provincial legislation—speeders. And at first glance that would have seemed to be the purpose of this one, which in part it was. As a trickle of motorists slowed down and obligingly rolled down their windows, the first question was friendly, unremarkable: “Good evening, sir. Good evening, madam. Any alcohol tonight?” On this evening, however, something more than drunken drivers was on the minds of the cops, whose roadblock remained in place through the night until almost six the next morning, long after Belleville’s bars had closed for the night.

  One week earlier, almost to the hour, a vivacious, independent-minded woman of twenty-seven had inexplicably vanished overnight from the brick-and-siding bungalow where she lived alone, right where the police checkpoint now straddled Highway 37. So as the passing motorists pulled up and the police discreetly sniffed for a whiff of booze, drivers were asked to cast their minds back a few days. Had they been traveling this way the previous Thursday evening, January 28, or early on Friday? Did they recall seeing anything unusual? Did they know of anyone else who did?

  Belleville is a mostly blue-collar city of fifty thousand inhabitants, a two-hour drive east of Toronto along Highway 401. And like authorities anywhere else, its police are well accustomed to fielding missing-person reports. Unless they involve youngsters or the elderly, such disappearances rarely stir much concern at the outset. Sooner or later, and usually sooner, most people turn up unscathed and perhaps apologetic for having caused such a fuss.

  But from the first hours of Jessica Lloyd’s vanishing, alarm bells rang. She’d texted a friend shortly after ten-thirty at night to say she’d arrived home safely after spending the evening with him at a mutual friend’s house and was turning in for the night. But she’d failed to show up for work the next morning at the bus company where she’d worked for the past two years, Tri-Board Student Transportation Services Inc. in nearby Napanee. And because she was always punctual, colleagues at work swiftly realized something was very wrong.

  January 29 was a Friday, and at around nine o’clock Lloyd’s mother, Roxanne McGarvey, got a call from the school bus company in Napanee telling her that her daughter had not shown up for work that morning. McGarvey headed for Jessica’s house, stopping off en route at the office of Jessica’s doctor in Belleville to see if by any chance she was there. On arriving at her daughter’s house, she found the car still in the driveway, the doors locked and no signs of a break and enter. Inside was everything Jessica would normally have had with her: her purse and identification, her BlackBerry, her eyeglasses, her keys. McGarvey began phoning family members and friends, and Jessica’s older brother Andy, to whom she was close, was among the first to get the call. A confident, burly figure who had a warehou
se job with the Beer Store, working the midnight shift, Andy Lloyd would become the public face of his sister’s family and many friends in the weeks and months ahead, answering the barrage of reporters’ questions with unfailing patience.

  “It drew a red flag so quick,” he said of Jessica’s disappearance. After Williams was arrested, Andy Lloyd recounted to CBC television how he had learned something was amiss. He had just come home from work. “I’d only been laying down for half an hour and my mom phoned and told me she was missing and it didn’t really register … So I rushed right over to my sister’s house, where my mom was, and it all just kind of converged from there. Within an hour a lot of friends and family were over. And the police were there obviously. We called them right away and they were there very quickly and it just kind of exploded from there.”

  The police arrived shortly after noon, and quickly spotted two sets of footprints in the snow, leading from the house to a set of tire tracks about 150 yards away, on the edge of the cornfield at the north end of the property. Scores of volunteers began fanning out and scouring the woods and surrounding fields, and they were joined by personnel from CFB Trenton together with police from Belleville and from the small, neighboring Stirling-Rawdon police department. The OPP brought in a helicopter, as did the military at 8 Wing, a big yellow search-and-rescue Cormorant, the deployment of which was approved by the base commander, Colonel Russell Williams. Hundreds of posters were quickly printed and distributed, plastered on cars and hydro poles, seeking a young woman who was five foot five, weighing 125 pounds, with bright green eyes, brown shoulder-length hair and an intricate, L-shaped tattoo across her lower back. There was widespread concern about the disappearance, as Lloyd had lived most of her life in Belleville and was extremely well liked. An ad hoc Facebook group, “Find Jessica Elizabeth Lloyd,” sprang to life, as more than 48,000 people—including family and friends, but mostly strangers—pitched in with sympathy, thoughts and advice. Deputy Belleville Police Chief Paul Vandegraaf called the collective response “amazing.”