QUEBEC CITY – The man charged with first-degree murder in the
slaying of a Quebec political aide says he hesitated for a few minutes
before making the decision to kill the woman after breaking into her
home.
Francis Proulx, 29, charged in the death of Nancy Michaud,
took the stand yesterday for a second day in a Quebec City courtroom,
detailing his version of the facts when Michaud was dragged from her
rural Quebec home last May.
Proulx told the jury that he was
dressed entirely in black and was masked as he crept up the stairs of
Michaud’s home as she and her two young children slept in the farming
village of Rivière-Ouelle, northeast of Quebec City.
He had
entered through a basement door and removed his boots. Proulx said the
bedroom light went on as he got to the top of the stairs.
Proulx, who testified in great detail and exhibited little emotion, said Michaud, 37, asked what he wanted.
“She said: ‘Who are you? Who are you? What do you want?’ ” Proulx recounted.
“That’s when I asked myself, ‘What is it I want?’ “
Proulx said he indicated with a hand gesture he wanted money and after
she noticed his gun, he fired into the ceiling of the bedroom.
“She was scared,” Proulx said. “She was hiding under the covers.”
Proulx never spoke to Michaud, but handcuffed her and tied her feet.
After refusing the furniture and electronics she offered him, he
accepted two debit cards and the pin numbers for both before taking
Michaud to her own basement.
Proulx said he was unsure what do
with the victim and hesitated for about five to 10 minutes, pacing up
and down the stairs, contemplating letting her go, but all the while
determined to get back his handcuffs.
As Michaud demanded to be set free, Proulx, who said he was calm throughout, went back down the stairs one last time.
“I went down and faced her – it happened quickly – I picked up the revolver and I put a bullet in her head,” he said.
Proulx decided to transport the body to an abandoned home where he had sex with her body.
“I had never made love with anyone,” Proulx said. “She was dead and I wasn’t raping her, it couldn’t have hurt her.”
It was two days after her disappearance that police found Michaud’s
body in that same abandoned house a few kilometres from her house.
Michaud worked as a political aide to Claude Béchard, Quebec’s natural resources minister.
The trial is to continue next Wednesday.
