Véronique Manceaux is charged with murder in the death of Jimmy Méthot. A witness in her trial insists medications he was prescribed while in prison have caused him to not remember the killing.
Article content
A key witness in the trial of a woman charged with first-degree murder was given another warning that he might be cited for contempt of court because of his claims that he cannot remember how he helped to kill the victim nearly three years ago.
The man is 20 now and was 17 when he assaulted Jimmy Méthot and prevented him from leaving Véronique Manceaux’s home on Rathwell St. in Lachine, where she is alleged to have stabbed and punched him. Manceaux is on trial before a jury at the Montreal courthouse. She is charged with first-degree murder and committing an indignity to Méthot’s body.
Advertisement 2
Story continues below
Article content
Article content
The victim was killed over the Labour Day weekend of 2021.
In December 2022, the 20-year-old witness pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in youth court for which he is serving a nine-year sentence. His identity is protected by Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act.
On Wednesday, the witness responded to most of the questions posed by Crown prosecutor Jasmine Guillaume with answers like: “I don’t remember.” He then refused to continue testifying while the court listened to a recording of his testimony from a previous court hearing.
At the end of the day on Wednesday, Superior Court Justice Daniel Royer warned the witness that he could be cited with contempt of court.
After the witness returned to the witness stand on Thursday, and again claimed to be unable to recall what happened when Méthot was killed, the judge warned him a second time.
“I might consider that saying you don’t remember anything is the same as refusing to testify and the result will be the same. You might be cited for contempt of court if you obstruct the justice system,” Royer said.
“May I say something? I truly don’t remember. I remember sitting on Manceaux’s couch. I remember doing some things like this. But the actual events that happened, I don’t remember. You can put me through any psychiatric test that you want. I don’t remember. I can’t tell you something I don’t remember,” the witness said before the judge called for the jury’s lunch break.
Today’s One Read
Article content
Advertisement 3
Story continues below
Article content
When the witness was asked, by Guillaume, how he could remember details of the attack when he pleaded guilty in youth court and when he testified at Manceaux’s preliminary inquiry early in 2023, he attributed his memory loss to medication he was prescribed “while in juvie” to deal with the trauma of witnessing Méthot’s death. He said he stopped taking the medication after he was transferred to a federal penitentiary for adults this year.
“I was heavily medicated. I was on all kinds of pills. Like a year after (the homicide), I was heavily medicated,” the witness said. “I was taking all kinds of medication. I don’t remember much.
“(It was) a lot of medication in a short amount of time and years of this going by, my God, I’ve just flushed it out of my mind because it was destroying me.”
He said the court-recommended medication caused him to sleep 16 hours a day while he was in juvenile detention and left him feeling “like a zombie.”
When the witness pleaded guilty at the end of 2022, a statement of facts was read into the court record and he agreed to them. Guillaume read from the statement of facts on Thursday. He agreed in 2022 that he heard Manceaux and Méthot arguing over something in another room while people were gathered at her house.
Advertisement 4
Story continues below
Article content
He also agreed that he tried to get them to calm down and that Méthot tried to intimidate him before he threw a beer mug at Méthot.
Based on what Guillaume told the court, the witness assaulted Méthot and grabbed him as he tried to leave the house. The witness also threw Méthot through a glass door inside the home before bringing him to Manceaux’s living room. The witness also said Manceaux was under the influence of crack cocaine and that she claimed Méthot was “a spy” before he was killed.
The jury has also been told that Méthot was forced to drink a flammable liquid and that he died in agonizing pain on Manceaux’s living room floor.
Guillaume reminded the witness that he told the police Manceaux offered Méthot a last meal before he died.
“Do you remember when you brought back Jimmy in the living room and Mrs. Manceaux offered him a (last) meal?” the prosecutor asked.
“That’s messed up and I don’t ever remember hearing that,” the witness said.
Article content
Comments