Under around-the-clock guard by sheriff’s officers, the 12 members of the jury in the first-degree murder trial of Anne Norris spent the night in a St. John’s hotel Thursday, sequestered until they reach a verdict.
After receiving extensive instruction from Justice William Goodridge on how to apply the law in this case, the six men and six women spent about two hours in private discussions before retiring for the night. They will have no access to media or phones until they present their verdict in the case.
The jurors aren’t tasked with a typical guilty/not guilty decision; in this case, they already know Norris killed Marcel Reardon by repeatedly striking him in the head with a hammer, because she has admitted it.
She has acknowledged catching a cab with him from the downtown St. John’s area to her Brazil Street apartment building in the early morning hours and moving his body underneath a set of steps at the back of the building once he was dead. She has admitted getting rid of the hammer and her bloodstained jeans by putting them in a backpack and throwing them into St. John’s harbour.
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What the jury must decide is if Norris, 30, is criminally responsible for killing Reardon, 46.
Her lawyers say she isn’t, and point to Norris’s significant history of mental illness, which includes treatment for psychosis and her longtime belief she was being sexually assaulted by various men while she slept.
Norris has said she was sexually assaulted by a basketball coach over a period of years when she was a young teenager.
Norris was “a ticking time bomb” when she was released from the Waterford Hospital virtually untreated days before she killed Reardon, defence lawyer Jerome Kennedy told the jury in his final arguments. She had experienced a rapid and steep decline of her mental health over the previous four years, he said.
“Mr. Reardon was an unfortunate victim of Ms. Norris’s delusions,” Kennedy said.
Norris thought Reardon was going to sexually assault her and that’s why she attacked him, he added.
Kennedy asked the jury to consider Norris’s “normal life” before being diagnosed with a mental illness, her psychiatric records, and the possibility she was misdiagnosed and untreated when she was released from hospital, among other things, when making a decision.
He also summarized evidence presented by Norris’s father and her ex-boyfriend — who gave first-hand accounts of witnessing her delusions — and four psychiatrists who had treated or otherwise interacted with Norris.
“If you do not believe she is not criminally responsible, I would suggest manslaughter is appropriate,” Kennedy told the jury.
If Norris is declared not criminally responsible for Reardon’s death, she will be put into psychiatric care until she is deemed safe to be in the community by a review board. If the jury finds Norris does not meet the criteria for a not criminally responsible verdict, they will then have to decide if she is guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter.
Crown prosecutors Iain Hollett and Jeff Summers maintain she should be found guilty of first-degree murder, since killing Reardon was deliberate and involved planning. Though she had a mental illness, there is no evidence of her being symptomatic at the time of the attack to the point she didn’t know right from wrong, they argue.
In his closing arguments, Hollett pointed to Norris’s father’s testimony that Norris seemed to be in a “good frame of mind” the day before she killed Reardon, and Norris herself gave a statement to police saying the night of his death she had told two friends, one of them male, that she would leave her apartment door unlocked so they could come in during the night.
“How do you square that with delusions and feelings of fear?” Hollett asked. “When you look at the history of how she experienced delusions, these events don’t seem to fit.”
Norris lied to police about not knowing Reardon and going home alone that night, and made attempts, albeit unsophisticated, to hide the body and dispose of the evidence, Hollett said. She also spent time choosing a hammer, and told a forensic psychiatrist she had continued striking Reardon until he was dead.
“The evidence suggests the accused knew full well what she was doing was legally and morally wrong,” Hollett said. “Mr. Reardon was killed because the accused intended to kill him.”
Thirty-one witnesses have testified over the past month, including police officers, paramedics, employees of Walmart (where Norris purchased the hammer), friends and acquaintances who spent time with Norris the day she killed Reardon and the time before her arrest, the province’s chief medical examiner, doctors and Norris’s father.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
Earlier story:
Jury deliberations begin in Anne Norris’s murder trial
The jury for the murder trial of Anne Norris has begun its deliberations.
The six men and six women of the jury spent the morning in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in St. John’s hearing closing statements by Crown prosecutor Iain Hollett and defence lawyer Jerome Kennedy, and spent the afternoon receiving instructions on the law and how to apply it from Justice William Goodridge before heading to a private room to begin discussing a verdict.
The jury warpped up its discussions around 6:30 p.m. and will be sequestered in a hotel for the night. The jurors will continue deliberating Friday morning.
Related story:
The murder trial of Anne Norris — what you need to know
Norris, 30, has admitted killing Marcel Reardon, 46, in May 2016 by striking him repeatedly in the head with a hammer she had bought hours earlier. She has admitted putting the hammer and her bloodstained jeans into a backpack and then throwing it into St. John’s harbour.
Hollett and fellow prosecutor Jeff Summers say Norris planned and deliberately killed Reardon and is guilty of first-degree murder.
Kennedy and co-counsel Rosellen Sullivan argue Norris is not criminally responsible for killing Reardon due to a severe mental illness that caused her to be delusional.
The jury has heard testimony from 31 witnesses since the trial began Jan. 22, including police officers, friends of Norris, employees of Walmart (where she purchased the hammer), the province’s chief medical examiner, five psychiatrists and one psychologist, as well as Norris’s father.
The jurors were expected to deliberate until suppertime Thursday before resuming their discussions Friday morning.
The Telegram will provide an update from the courtroom when the jurors return with a verdict.
