Shortly before the sentencing hearing resumed yesterday for the girl killer known as M.T., a young man sat in the prisoner's box, waiting as his case was set over for trial.
He is one of two men charged with first-degree murder in the Feb. 28, 2008, death of Toronto florist Felicia Hosany. The 51-year-old woman was found in her ransacked shop, bound and gagged, her nose and mouth covered with duct tape; she had suffocated.
In the box was the younger of the accused men. The 22-year-old sat with his head hung low, his face such a study in misery that it was striking, and I asked a police officer, who is involved in the case, about him.
"Oh," the officer said, "He hasn't lifted his head since he was arrested."
His trial was soon set for the fall of 2010, and off he went, a shambling young man, the very personification of shame.
What I thought, as I watched him, was, "So that's what remorse looks like."
Minutes later, M.T. arrived, and was shortly led to the witness stand to make the statement that is by law allowed her.
For M.T., convicted by a jury in March of first-degree murder in the Jan. 1, 2008, stabbing death of Stefanie Rengel, this was the culmination of the hearing, which will see Mr. Justice Ian Nordheimer of Ontario Superior Court decide whether she should be sentenced as an adult or as a youth.
What I thought, as I saw M.T., was, "Now, that's straight hair."
M.T., as everyone now knows, is obsessed with her appearance, particularly her hair, particularly that her naturally wavy hair is bone straight.
Before her arrest, she always carried a straightening iron about in case it rained and repairs were necessary, and even the defence's hired-gun psychiatrist, Julian Gojer, noted that, "She was very particular about ... her hair being straight, even when she went to court."
What I can say about the brief statement she made was, well, her hair was perfect - straighter than she ever got it for her trial; straight, full and shining.
I'm betting she will be pleased with that review.
The statement itself was five paragraphs long, or 234 words. It was typed, and she read from it slowly, occasionally appearing to tear up and pausing to collect herself, though I noted that as she walked past me on her way to the prisoner's box, her cheeks appeared dry.
She looked toward the body of the court - her lawyer, Marshall Sack, had held up two fingers and pointed them at his own eyes before she began in what I took as a reminder to make eye contact - as she read.
She said she was "sorry for everything that I've said and done to contribute to Stefanie's death." She said, "I want you to know that I take full responsibility for my part ... I never meant for this all to occur."
She said, "No one should have to go through this in such an unfair and such a violent and horrific way as all of you have encountered." She said, "I feel very bad for all the lives that I've ruined and affected." She said she understood that Stefanie's family may never forgive her, but "I felt it was important to still share this apology with you. I have learned many lessons from this tragedy. I would never commit another offence. I believe treatment will help my disorders and that I will be able to contribute to society in a positive way when I finish my sentence."
That was that.
She was not under oath, not a witness, and thus prosecutor Robin Flumerfelt had no chance to cross-examine her, as he would have if she had testified in her own defence at trial. Her statement is not evidence.
But more than this, if it was designed to illustrate that she is coming to grips with what she did, that she is sorry, it fell far short.
First, M.T. did not merely "contribute" to or have "a part" in Stefanie's murder; she was the mastermind, the mover, the single-minded driving force such that without her, there would not have been a murder.
As Mr. Flumerfelt noted in his submissions yesterday, M.T. ran a campaign over months with her boyfriend (a now 19-year-old known as D.B.) to convince him to kill Stefanie.
She nagged, alternately flooded him with text messages and calls, then cut him off as punishment when he failed to act, used sex as a weapon, and was utterly relentless and merciless as he stalled and procrastinated. She was on what Mr. Flumerfelt correctly called "a calculated and prolonged mission to take a human life," that of Stefanie, a 14-year-old girl she had never even met.
In the hour immediately preceding the murder, she and D.B. exchanged 25 phone calls. In the last of these, as M.T. herself told Toronto police, "And he's like, 'Oh wait, I see her' [this was Stefanie, whom D.B. had just lured out of her house]and he hung up the phone and then I called him and I said, 'Did you kill her?' or something."
Mr. Sack can say, as he did yesterday, that M.T. was just "a secondary participant" until the cows come home, and it will not diminish the murderous venom in his client's own words.
"She did not wield the knife," Mr. Sack said. "She was not present physically during the violence ... she was at home when the event occurred."
Mr. Sack's view is that M.T.'s culpability "is based upon words, not deeds" and argued, based in part upon Dr. Gojer's findings that the roots of M.T.'s actions lie in her anxiety and body dysmorphic (unhappiness with her physical appearance) disorders, that she would be well-served by treatment within the youth criminal justice system.
Of that rosy picture of things, Mr. Flumerfelt had this to say: "Dr. Gojer's conclusion was that M.T. was dissatisfied with her hair and weight, and there are pills that will clear that up, and not to worry.
"If so," he snapped, "then the halls of our high schools are killing fields."
Stefanie Rengel's death was not a simple tragedy, though tragic, of course, it was. She was slaughtered by a stupid boy, in the thrall of a scary and dictatorial girl who, in the fashion of history's worst killers, issued the edict and did not deign to get her own hands bloody.
And 18 months after the orders were issued, M.T. still knows less about remorse than that young man with the bowed head who preceded her to the prisoner's box yesterday.
Judge Nordheimer will release his decision July 28.