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Ellie-May Meyer, 33, was found dead May 6th, 2005.

Joseph Laboucan, 23, was charged with second-degree murder.

latest update | Joseph Laboucan charged | reaction to arrest
Meyer and Laboucan - a shared past

At about 11:06 p.m. on the evening of May 6th, 2005 a farmer tilling a field, near Highway 21 and Township Road 534 east of Edmonton, discovered a female body that appeared to have been dumped, part of a pattern that has become all too familiar to Strathcona RCMP.

Investigators said the body had decomposed but was clothed and had not been burned.

Project KARE, the RCMP-led task force investigating the deaths of women involved in "high-risk lifestyles," was called in.

A week after the discovery, police identified the body as that of Ellie-May Meyer, a sex-trade worker who usually worked the area of 118th Ave and 95th Street in Edmonton and was last seen alive on April 1st, 2005.

While withholding cause, police labelled her death a homicde. Investigators estimated she had been in the field where she was found for less than two weeks.

Meyer was the seventh slain sex-trade worker to be found on the city's outskirts since 2002. She had registered with Project KARE in 2003 but was not reported missing.

In the summer of 2004, Meyer was interviewed by a local newspaper in connection with the deaths of Rachel Quinney, 19, Monique Pitre, 30, and Melissa Munch, 23.

Quinney's body was found June 11th, 2004, and Pitre and Munch were found a few days apart in January 2003.

Ironically, Meyer's body was found within just a few kilometres of the three, all in an area northeast of Sherwood Park.

Joseph Laboucan charged

On September 12th, 2008 RCMP announced that Joseph Laboucan had been charged with second-degree murder in connection with Meyer's death.

Laboucan was arrested in prison at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan where he was serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years for the first-degree murder of Nina Courtepatte.

Courtepatte, 13, died from blunt force trauma in April 2005 on a golf course west of Edmonton.

Laboucan was to be transported to Edmonton to appear in Strathcona County Provincial Court on September 15th, 2008.

Speaking at a media conference held at RCMP K Division, Cpl. Wayne Oakes said the nature of Project KARE cases sometimes takes quite a long time to develop enough evidence to lay charges.

"Sometimes the evidence is very clear and it is very 'evident.' In other cases it takes extraordinary efforts to come up with the evidence," he said.

"We made it very clear when Project KARE was first launched, do not expect quick, high-flying results. These cases are the most challenging of the challenging cases out there."

Meyer's body was discovered about a month after Nina Courtepatte was slain. Oakes was asked when Laboucan became a suspect – was it before, during or after the Courtepatte trial.

"I don't recall right off the top of my head which came first, and without being able to do some research into that I can't give you the definitive answer on that," Oakes replied, uncharacteristically caught off guard by the question.

Laboucan's previous conviction didn't make the Meyer charge any more significant, Oakes said.

"They're all important. Every one of the cases that Project KARE and all of the other police services and investigative units across this country [are investigating], they are all important to the investigators who are directly involved."

Oakes also didn't comment on whether police believe Laboucan is a serial killer or whether he was under investigation for any other homicides.

RCMP offered little else in the way detail regarding the 40-month long investigation that led to the charge being laid against Laboucan, saying only that the investigation was ongoing.

In a telephone interview the Last Link conducted with Laboucan in November 2007, the man maintained his innocence in the Courtepatte matter.

He also said police have continued to show him pictures of Meyer, asking him if he had slept with her, and if he had murdered other women.

Laboucan said he told investigators he didn't know Meyer and that he didn't have sex with her.

He also complained that police were still hassling his parents in Fort St. John and Dawson Creek, hauling his mother into a local RCMP detachment and questioning her for hours.

Laboucan faulted the testimony against him, especially from his co-accused. He said it was "all told from the same perspective," as if it had been rehearsed.

The man also claimed it was Michael Briscoe and Michael "Pyro" Williams who had hatched the plan to kill Courtepatte, and that he was only guilty of standing by and letting it happen.

The convict made a further claim that Briscoe had done "this sort of thing before."

Laboucan was still being held in the basement of the Edmonton Institution at the time of the interview, kept apart from the general population in segregation. He had been there for over a year.

It is not known when he was transferred to the Prince Albert facility.

Soon after his conviction, Laboucan appealed his case. A hearing was held in June 2008 and a verdict from a panel of three judges, deciding whether to grant him a new trial or not, had yet to be released.

While investigators initially estimated Meyer's body had been in the field for less than two weeks before being discovered on May 6th, 2005, court documents related to Laboucan's trial for the Courtepatte murder indicated police think the woman was killed around the time she disappeared – April 1st.

Nina was sexually assaulted, beaten and her body set on fire on April 3rd.

Reaction to arrest

Peacha Atkinson, Nina's mother, never believed Laboucan's claims that he was set up in her daughter's murder.

"I'm going to keep saying it, maybe eventually I'll get my wish and he'll be charged as a dangerous offender," she said.

If given a dangerous offender designation, Laboucan could be imprisoned indefinitely, a propect that seemed to please the mother greatly.

"Oh you don't how glad – I'm just so happy inside that I finally can keep him in there," she said.

"When he murdered Nina, he got us so mad that now it's my turn to do the revenge on him and it will be done legally."

Kathy King, acting executive director of the Prostitution Awareness and Action Foundation of Edmonton, said Laboucan's charge was a minor milestone.

"We will graciously accept what we can get in terms of justice," she said.

"There is still a lot of work left to be done and many people who have yet to be named and brought to justice.

"An arrest is a relief but it just reminds us of how many cases are still unsolved."

King noted that Project KARE continues to look into over 70 outstanding cases, one of them her daughter's – Cara King.

Cara's body was found in a canola field near Highway 214 and Highway 16 near Sherwood Park on September 1st, 1997. She was 22.

Danielle Boudreau, an activist for missing and murdered women and a friend of Peacha Atkinson, shared a personal connection to the Meyer case.

"She lived with my family and they were really close with her as well. They happened to be around today when the news broke and everyone was pretty excited and very, very happy."

Boudreau, who with Peacha has sat in on almost all of the various trials dealing with Nina's attackers, told of how the last few years have affected her.

"These murders have changed my life ... and I'm just really glad the Meyer family will have the closure that they need and we can move on."

Speaking with the Edmonton Sun, Boudreau said she was first surprised then relieved when she heard of the charge against Laboucan.

"I'm really, really happy about it," she said. "It brings closure for [me]."

Meyer had lived with Boudreau's aunt and uncle and often babysat her cousins. Boudreau remembered her as a "really good person" with a strong sense of humour.

"She was a member of the family. She always had a lot of fun. She loved to tell jokes."

Like Atkinson, Boudreau felt that Laboucan should be declared a dangerous offender.

"I do feel it's appropriate because he's going to be sitting in jail. No matter what, he'll be there for 25 years. In 25 years that only makes him 48. Is he going to change when he gets out? I don't think so."

Boudreau spoke to Project KARE's track record. In operation for five years at a cost of $11 million, Joseph Laboucan is only the second person charged by the task force.

"It's just going to prove that Project Kare is working so hard and diligently to close these cases," she said. "It's taking time. People just have to have patience."

Taking issue with media focus on the occupation of a victim, Boudreau said that murder is murder, whether the victim sold sex on the streets or was a store clerk.

"We focus so much on the job. Would it matter if it was an accountant that went missing and was murdered? It's about the men who are violating these women.

"The main thing for me is just to get a conviction. I don't want to know the dirty details. To me, these women were women. They were aunts, daughters, sisters and mothers," she said.

In addition to the deaths of Meyer and friend Rachel Quinney, Boudreau and her family had seen more than their fair share of tragedy in recent years.

On February 26th, 2006, Boudreau's stepsister Juanita Cardinal was stabbed to death in a southside home. No charges were laid after the Crown concluded there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction.

More recently, on September 5th, 2008, Danielle's 43-year-old brother William died in a collision after the motorised bicycle he was riding hit a truck at the intersection of 153rd Street and 110th Avenue.

Criminologist Bill Pitt was contacted by Metro Edmonton for his view regarding why RCMP took so long to charge Laboucan for Meyer's murder.

“Maybe Mr. Laboucan is responsible for more out there,” Pitt said.

“I'm sure they've looked at him for a series of these crimes, whether or not he was around, or had seen these girls last,” he added. “But I don't think the story of serial killers in Edmonton is going to end with Laboucan.

“With the Nina Courtepatte murder, I described Laboucan and his colleagues as absolutely evil,” Pitt said.

“So I think that when you're looking at people that do the things that they did to Nina, are they capable of other dastardly, wicked things? I think, yes.”

It has been speculated by others who watch Edmonton's crime scene closely that Laboucan was held in segregation at the Edmonton Institution for a longer than usual amount of time, leading some to think RCMP did not want to have the man moved before their case against him was strengthened.

Meyer and Laboucan - a shared past

Soon after Joseph Laboucan was charged with Ellie-May Meyer's murder, details emerged that the two had once enjoyed "an intimate relationship" when they both lived in Fort St. John, British Columbia.

Ellie-May Meyer was born in Quebec and was bilingual. She had a younger sister and brother and she also had two children. Her daughter died shortly after she was born; her son was given up for adoption a few years ago.

According to her mother, Evanelina, Ellie-May had dreams of becoming a nurse.

In her teens, Meyer worked in a care home in Fort St. John. She liked to take care of people, Evanelina recalled for the Edmonton Journal.

Meyer wanted to go on and become a nurse to work with the elderly full-time. However, she already had a criminal record [details unknown] and Meyer felt that got in the way of realising her goals.

"She just seemed to give up, as if there were no more chances out there for her," Evanelina said.

In 1991, Ellie-May moved to Edmonton with a boyfriend. Soon she started using drugs and by 1998 had became involved in the sex trade. Her family never knew many of the details of Ellie-May's lifestyle changes.

"She never told us she was on the streets. We knew that she was into drug dealing and drug pushing and that was only because she ended up in prison," Evanelina said.

"We knew what was going on, but could never get her to admit it. She never wanted us to know what she was up to, she didn't want to disappoint us."

Over the years, Meyer always kept in touch with her family, never missing a Mother's Day, a Father's Day or a birthday.

"She would say how much she missed her family and needed to see us. I would send her a bus ticket and she would call and say she would be on the night bus, but would never show up."

Evanelina said she last spoke to her daughter three weeks before she disappeared. "Ellie was a very good person," she added.

"I had always hoped that something or someone could rescue her from the life she was in, but that never happened. As parents, her father and I tried everything, but nothing worked."

Those who worked with Ellie-May on Edmonton's notorious 118th Avenue stroll said she was street-savvy and well-liked.

"She was a beautiful person, inside and outside," Melissa said. "She was a really good friend, she would give you the shirt off her back, if she could."

Ellie-May's cousin spoke with CBC Edmonton and said her relative would do anything for the people she knew. The cousin speculated that Ellie-May had become re-acquainted with Laboucan on the streets of Edmonton.

Joseph Laboucan was born July 25th, 1985 in the town of Fairview, population 3,000, just inside the Alberta border east of Dawson Creek and Fort St. John.

By summer 2000, Laboucan had moved west to northern B.C., living between the two small communities.

The Edmonton Journal caught up with a pair of men, now barely in their twenties, who knew Laboucan at that time.

Both requested anonymity, citing that their past gang and drug connections as members of a street gang, that did business with several larger biker gangs, had forced them into a witness protection program.

One said his friend was a "great guy," although it was not an opinion shared by many.

A movie date was recalled, involving Meyer, Laboucan and almost two dozen other people. That a teen like Laboucan was hanging out with a woman more 10 years older wasn't considered odd in the small community.

"In Fort St. John, it's a very close city and age really doesn't matter. It's pretty much who you know.

"Every time I saw them together, they were really happy," one of the two men said. "As far as I remember, they never fought."

In August 2003, Laboucan had his back broken in a car accident when he worked for a transport company. Wearing an upper body brace for months, around town he earned the nickname "Body Cast Joe."

Laboucan started boasting that an upcoming settlement related to the car accident would yield him a large cheque. In addition, he began to talk openly about sex and his fantasies about teenaged girls, according to the friends interviewed.

"It was really weird stuff ... In my eyes, you don't talk about things like that, right? It's really wrong."

In March 2005 Laboucan headed to Edmonton to pick up his cheque.

On April 1st the last reported sighting of Ellie-May Meyer takes place. Two days later 13-year-old Nina Courtepatte is raped, beaten and her body set on fire.

On April 4th, Laboucan called a friend in Fort St. John to say he witnessed a brutal attack.

“[Laboucan] said he'd been out at a party and seen a bunch of guys kill this girl. He said she was hit in the head with a wrench of some kind,” a witness later testified at Laboucan's trial.

When first interviewed by police on April 5th, Laboucan offered several confusing versions of recent events.

The former crystal meth addict told officers he was once a drug debt collector for a pair of gangs. He described an attack on a prostitute that took place two days before Nina's body was found.

Laboucan said he and a trio of his old gang buddies – Lorenzo, Toothless Jay, and Ace – picked up two women from 118th Avenue. One woman, who was a mother, got beaten, he said.

"I don't like hookers. I don't agree with hookers," he told police. "I think that anybody should be able to go and find a job. You don't have to go to hooking."

On April 12th Laboucan and four others were charged with first-degree murder for Courtepatte's death. On May 6th Meyer's body was found.

During a two-month trial in early 2007, Laboucan's co-accused pointed to him as the ringleader in the attack against Nina and that he had bragged about killing someone earlier.

One female young offender told court Laboucan said he liked to take souvenirs from his victims, such as a finger.

Laboucan has claimed he was only the fall guy in Nina's death, framed for a killing he simply witnessed.

One of the co-accused testified that hours after Nina had been murdered Laboucan and Michael Briscoe took a drive down Whyte Avenue, looking for someone else to kill.

On March 23rd, 2007 Laboucan was found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault and was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole for 25 years. He was also ordered to submit a DNA sample.

During the summer of 2007, Project KARE interviewed Laboucan about Meyer's death. Documents later entered into court records indicated RCMP alleged Laboucan's DNA was found on her body.

"I would never, ever be able to take anybody's life," he once told police during an interview. "And I'm telling you that honestly."

Laboucan has said he suffers from multiple medical problems, including attention deficit disorder, epilepsy and grand mal seizures.

And according to a defence lawyer representing one of his co-accused, Laboucan also suffers from being a liar.

"No one can believe one word that comes out of the mouth of Laboucan," Peter Royal said during closing arguments in the trial of a young offender nicknamed "Buffy."

Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that there are other suspects in Meyer's death.

It was a disappointing day for media waiting outside the Strathcona County Provincial Court house on September 15th, 2008.

Joseph Laboucan's first scheduled court appearance had been delayed to September 18th and moved to Fort Saskatchewan Provincial Court.

It was also learned that Laboucan had already appeared before a justice of the peace on the evening of September 12th, the day he was charged.

Court documents indicated that Meyer was murdered "at or near Fort Saskatchewan," causing the change in venue.

Global Edmonton reported what was earlier revealed in court documents: that police believe Meyer was murdered two days before Nina Courtepatte's death.

On September 18th Laboucan's first court appearance in Fort Saskatchewan was not made by closed-circuit television as was first expected. Veteran defence lawyer Laura Stevens appeared in person on his behalf.

The matter was set over to October 30th, 2008 so that the defence could have time to examine the Crown's evidence against Laboucan, a process termed disclosure.

Joseph Laboucan was the second person charged under the Project KARE mandate. In May 2006, Thomas George Svekla was charged with second-degree murder and offering an indignity to a body in the deaths of Theresa Merrie Innes and Rachel Quinney.

Svekla was later sentenced to life in prison for killing Innes, with parole ineligibility set at 17 years. He was acquitted of the charges involving Quinney.

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Glitches plagued Global Edmonton's coverage of Laboucan's arrest.

Problems related to the station's recent control room overhaul for digital and high definition broadcast left viewers looking at a low-tech snafu.

deadmonton 2005 - ellie-may meyer