OTTAWA — Kevin Gregson, the former Mountie who stabbed Ottawa Police officer Eric Czapnik to death more than two years ago, is guilty of first-degree murder. The jury in Gregson’s trial delivered its verdict Tuesday night after more than nine hours of deliberation. The news was greeted by sighs of relief in Courtroom 36. In attendance when the verdict was read out by the jury foreman were 20 members of Czapnik’s Ottawa Police Service detachment and the family of the slain officer. The jury also found Gregson guilty of robbery in the armed theft of the car that took him to The Ottawa Hospital’s Civic campus. The murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for at least 25 years. The father of three will be almost 70 before his first chance of freedom on Dec. 28, 2034. Czapnik’s widow and some of the investigating officers spoke of the verdict at a press conference following Tuesday’s court proceedings and the reading of victim-impact statements. “I would think this is the time to heal for us right now,” Anna Korutowska said. “We will go on, we will be happy again. “We were hoping for first-degree guilty and I believe justice has been served and I’m very happy about the verdict, but it was very emotional.” After two weeks of brutal, draining testimony, then the finding of first-degree murder, the court heard four victim-impact statements from those most deeply affected by the killing of Czapnik. The first statement was from the four paramedics — Craig McInnes, Amanda Walkowiak, Patricia St. Denis and Virginia Warner — who tried in vain to save Czapnik’s life that cold Dec. 29, 2009, morning. Warner read out their statement. All four suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and one says she will never work again as a paramedic. “All four of us have been impacted from that terrible night,” she said. “After witnessing the murder of Eric Czapnik, a true hero, we have suffered emotionally and this has left us with varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder. “Gregson’s actions left us with no choice but to disarm and restrain him, instead of being able to help Eric further, leaving some of us with a terrible feeling of guilt,” she added. “As paramedics we are trained to help people. Having to watch and feel a man die in your own hands has left an unimaginable impact.” All four have been affected in different ways, she said. “Occurrences of nightmares and flashbacks have some of us reliving the traumatic event over and over, while others are fighting health problems, and changes in relationships.” After listening to the statement, Justice Douglas Rutherford told the four: “You boosted the reputation of your profession in our eyes.” The court next heard from Ottawa police Const. Chris Getz, a close friend of Czapnik’s, who described the shock of learning about the death of his colleague. The officer said members of the force’s east division openly cried when they heard the news. “The Ottawa police family was forever changed on Dec. 29, 2009. That family, I don’t only mean the sworn and civilian members of the service, but their wives, husbands, parents, siblings and friends, as well,” Getz said.

“Many spouses and family members of police officers have expressed how Eric’s senseless murder has created a significant increase in anxiety and fear for their husband (or) wife every time they go to work.” Czapnik was a well-loved, honest, hard-working police officer and a dedicated family man, said Getz. Looking directly at Gregson, he added: “Kevin Gregson, that is the legacy, the image, the personality of the man you senselessly and without provocation murdered. Eric didn’t die trying to save his life, he died fighting to stop you.” Czapnik’s son, Arthur, spoke next, asking for a moment of silence in memory of his father, which was observed. “I remain fatherless,” he said, continuing to speak on behalf of his siblings, who are all struggling to come to terms with their father’s murder. He then told the court that he, too, wishes to become a police officer, turning to Gregson and saying: “Gregson, because of people like you I need to be a police officer, to help our community to put away people like you.” Finally, Korutowska addressed the court. She had been in attendance every day of the trial. With her five-year old son, Anthony, sitting in the lap of an Ottawa police officer, she described her husband as a compassionate man. And then she described the toll that has been levied on her family. Czapnik’s 76-year-old mother in Poland is deeply grieving. “We speak every week, she cries, I cry.” Korutowska said her son has an acute awareness of his father’s passing, but often wishes he would return. “As for Anthony, well, anybody who knows and comes in contact with him is usually shocked at first at the level of knowledge about death and the level of loss he is experiencing. “I was not aware about the level of his understanding until around two weeks after Eric’s funeral, when Anthony asked me, while sitting in the bathtub and playing, ‘Mommy, why did the police put daddy in big brown box.’ I was shocked … This was one of the many more questions to come.” In closing, she told the court that her husband will always be a hero to her family. Rutherford told her that he hoped that she and her family feel the sympathy flowing to them from the whole City of Ottawa. When Rutherford asked Gregson whether he wanted to speak to the court, the convicted murderer rose swiftly said, ‘No,’ and sat again. Assistant Crown Attorney Meaghan Cunningham said outside court Tuesday night that she was very confident in the Crown’s case, although it’s always difficult when the verdict is put into the hands of a jury. “We feel it went pretty smoothly, that all the evidence came out as smoothly as it could,” Cunningham said. “I think the verdict is really the only verdict that was available on the evidence.” The trial, originally scheduled to last a month, lasted a little more than two weeks, largely because Gregson’s legal aid lawyer, Craig Fleming, chose not to cross-examine most of the prosecution witnesses.

The basic facts in the case were not in dispute. Gregson’s often emotional and graphic trial revealed a killer whose troubled disciplinary past with the RCMP culminated in his brutal stabbing of 51-year-old Czapnik in the parking lot of The Ottawa Hospital’s Civic campus on the frigid early morning of Dec. 29, 2009. In rambling testimony, Gregson admitted he stabbed Czapnik to death, but said his action had been instinctive and the result of being highly trained by both the RCMP and at a private security guard camp in South Africa. “I killed him, but didn’t murder him,” was Gregson’s basic defence from his arrest immediately after he stabbed Czapnik. But Crown prosecutor Brian Holowka told the court that Gregson’s life was crumbling around him because he was broke — the RCMP had stopped his salary and wanted more than $20,000 in back pay from him — and the night before the events at the Civic, his wife had confronted him with allegations of sexual abuse against a young girl. Holowka said Gregson was “dressed for battle” and knew exactly what he was doing when he carjacked the vehicle and made his way to the hospital. “It was a brutal attack,” he said. “Ireneusz (Eric) Czapnik was murdered while performing his duties as a police officer. And he quoted Gregson’s comment to a police officer after his arrest — proof, he said, of intent: “I came here looking for a fight,” he said. “You city cops are tough.” Holowka’s co-counsel, Cunningham, told the jury at the outset of the trial that Czapnik had been unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Polish-born officer, affectionately known as “Pickles” by his colleagues, was writing a report in his cruiser. “Gregson went to the Civic hospital that morning intending to confront a police officer,” Cunningham said. “Any officer would do. It just happened that Const. Czapnik was the first officer he found.” Paramedics had to wrestle Gregson from the body of a dying Czapnik and kick the knife from his hands. In a security camera video, Czapnik was seen running into the Civic’s emergency department clutching his throat. Gregson, dressed mostly in black, donned two bulletproof vests and carried two knives, a BB gun and handcuffs on his “hunt” for an officer. Holowka told the eight-man, four-woman jury in his final argument that their decision was, in effect, a slam dunk. “I don’t have to persuade you,” he told the jury, “because the evidence speaks clearly and loudly that Mr. Gregson is inescapably guilty of the charges. You have proof beyond any doubt.” Gregson maintained that an operation he had half a dozen years ago for water on the brain had affected his mental state, and on the night he killed Czapnik, he only wanted a gun that he could take home and use to kill himself. Czapnik, a father of four, was 51 and the oldest recruit in Ottawa police history. In his charge to the jury Tuesday morning, Rutherford included a detailed explanation of the law — specifically, the three aspects that elevate “culpable homicide,” which the defence has already admitted, to first-degree murder.

He told the jury that if they all agreed that Gregson knew that his attack against Czapnik could cause the officer’s death — even if Gregson didn’t intend to kill him — they should return a verdict of guilty. If they believed Gregson’s version of events, and that his stabbing of Czapnik was a “reflexive” response to the officer punching him in the face, then a not-guilty verdict would be appropriate. Rutherford recapped both the Crown and defence submissions to the jury, recalling the night of Czapnik’s death and Gregson’s comment after stabbing Czapnik that “all he had to do was give me the gun.” “It is for you to determine, in light of all the evidence, whether you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that, in doing what he did, Mr. Gregson had the requisite intent for murder.” Rutherford referred to the “common-sense inference” — that people are usually able to foresee the normal consequences of their actions, but that other factors, such as a disturbed mind, could affect that. “Mr. Gregson does not claim to have an impaired mind on the night in question, although he said he was depressed, referred to being messed up and pointed to his suicidal plans as evidence of mental health issues.” The judge reminded the jury that under Canadian law, their deliberations are secret and must remain so even after the trial. In a near two-hour presentation to the jury that included an extensive history of the role of juries in criminal proceedings, Gregson’s lawyer, Fleming, said although there had been inconsistencies in the Crown evidence, there was little disagreement between the two sides, beyond the pivotal issue of Gregson’s intent or understanding of the consequences of his actions. “This is not like Hollywood or like a lot of other trials,” said Fleming. “The defence has not attacked Crown evidence or witnesses. We have accepted it largely unchallenged.” Fleming urged jurors not to be influenced by personal feelings they might have developed toward Gregson because of his “unfortunate personality features” such as egoism, publicity seeking, self-interest and a tendency to be self-aggrandizing. “You might find him to be a bully, or crude or lacking in sensitivity,” said Fleming, “but you’re not here to admire him or dislike him. Whether you, I or the court like Mr. Gregson is irrelevant.” He comes from a “patriarchal home and maintains those characteristics,” Fleming added. “He appears insensitive to other people.” Ottawa Police Association president Matt Skof was pleased with the first-degree murder verdict. “While this conviction does not bring Eric back, it is another step in the healing process for all of us,” Skof said in a statement released Tuesday night. “Eric will live on in our hearts and minds. We will never forget him.” Later, Skof attended the press conference with Czapnik’s widow and other officers. In response to a question about how Czapnik’s killing affects policing, he said, “There’s no way you’re going to go through something like that and have someone approach you and not think about that. It’s a difficult thing to be constantly reminding yourself, but when you think about it and you’re in your car, you always have to be conscious of that fact (that you could be in danger).”