UPDATE: 'Why would I kill my husband for something like Romeo Cormier?’ woman testifies

MONCTON, N.B. — A 55-year-old New Brunswick woman who says she was kidnapped and held against her will for nearly a month is rejecting testimony from her alleged abductor that she wanted him to kill her husband.

The Crown recalled the woman to the witness stand Wednesday after Romeo Cormier, who is charged in the alleged abduction, concluded his testimony earlier in the day.

The woman — whose identity is protected by a publication ban — said there was never a plan to kill her husband, contrary to Cormier’s testimony.

“That never happened. My husband and I have a great relationship,” she told Crown lawyer Annie St. Jacques.

“Why would I kill my husband for something like Romeo Cormier?”

Cormier, 63, testified this week that he met the woman in 1993 in Newfoundland and that she was an acquaintance of his.

He told the court that she enlisted him in a plot to kill her husband in February 2010.

The woman testified last week that she did not know Cormier until he allegedly grabbed her on Feb. 26, 2010, at knifepoint outside the Moncton mall where she worked.

She said she was held captive in Cormier’s one-room basement apartment for 26 days until she escaped while he was out at a food bank.

Cormier said she had opportunities to leave his home but did not take them, and that he even showed the woman how to use his .22-calibre handgun.

“There was never no gun in Romeo Cormier’s room and he never showed me how to use a gun,” the woman said Wednesday.

“If that ever happened he wouldn’t be sitting there today.”

Cormier has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, forcible confinement, sexual assault, assault with a weapon, theft and uttering death threats.

The trial is adjourned until Monday.