A 13-year-old city girl who was raped and beaten to death on a golf course near Stony Plain last spring after being kidnapped at West Edmonton Mall was targeted as “the chosen one.”
That disturbing detail emerged yesterday in an agreed statement of facts after a 19-year-old man – one of five people charged in the April 3, 2005, slaying of Nina Courtepatte – earlier pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.
The man, who cannot be identified under a publication ban because he was 17 at the time, entered his guilty plea in Stony Plain youth court on Dec. 8. A sentencing hearing is slated for Edmonton’s youth court in April.
According to the agreed facts, Courtepatte’s body was found on April 4, 2005, by the owner of the Edmonton Springs Golf Course on the fairway of the fourth hole.
Courtepatte had been sexually assaulted, beaten with a wrench and a sledge hammer, stabbed with a pair of throwing knives and choked with a wrench.
The cause of her death was blunt cranial trauma.
According to the agreed statement of facts, the 19-year-old and his then-16-year-old girlfriend, also charged in the death, met the other three accused at a city restaurant on April 2, 2005.
Two of the accused are adults: Joseph Wesley Laboucan, 21, and Michael Erin Briscoe, 35.
According to the agreed facts, Laboucan outlined a plan to kill someone. The others initially thought he was joking, but later realized the plan was real.
“Throughout the day, the group talked a number of times about killing someone and that it would be a girl that was to be selected to be killed,” the statement says.
The group went to West Edmonton Mall to find a victim. Laboucan said he wanted a female because he wanted to have sexual intercourse with her.
Laboucan and Briscoe went into the mall and saw Courtepatte with a 15-year-old girlfriend. Laboucan decided “Courtepatte would be the intended victim.”
After the killing, the 15-year-old girlfriend asked “why this happened” to Courtepatte and Laboucan replied “because she is the chosen one.”
Once Courtepatte was selected, the two men returned to the group and told them they would come back to get her after they went for a meal at McDonald’s.
Courtepatte and her friend were told a ruse about a rave party to go to and, while driving to the golf course, everyone spoke of how much fun it would be.
While the group walked onto the golf course, Laboucan began talking about “rituals and raising the dead.”
The talk frightened the two girls and then Laboucan embraced Courtepatte and whispered something into her ear, causing her to “freak out” and begin screaming.
One of the accused then hit Courtepatte on the head with a wrench. The group began to beat her with their fists and feet. Courtepatte’s “extremely frightened” girlfriend was then taken back to the car, but she continued to hear her friend’s screams while leaving.
Courtepatte was told she was going to be killed, but the teen who has pleaded guilty in the slaying told her she could live if she had sex with some of the males.
Laboucan raped Courtepatte while one of the female accused held her hands. Then the teen raped her as well.
After the sex attacks, Courtepatte was told by the group that she would be killed with a metal sledge hammer.
She pleaded with them to not kill her and then pleaded to be stabbed instead.
One of the male accused tried to choke Courtepatte using the wrench across her throat. Laboucan tried to slit her throat with a pair of throwing knives, but they were too dull.
The group then decided to use the sledge hammer to finish her. She was hit several times by members of the group, including a blow to the head by the 19-year-old.
Witnesses say the 19-year-old also used the sledge hammer to hit Courtepatte in the groin area with the intention of disposing of evidence of the sexual assaults.
A female accused then stabbed Courtepatte in the throat and face.
When the group returned to the car, Courtepatte’s girlfriend was told the victim was still alive and they had stripped her naked and sent her home. They then left the golf course and went for a meal at a restaurant.
Laboucan and Briscoe are slated to have a jury trial in mid-January on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault. The two female accused are also slated to have jury trials on the first-degree murder charges next year.
The agreed statement of facts is not evidence in the cases of the other accused.
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