Michel Cadotte felt “like a murderer” while he sought a medically assisted death for his wife.
The revelation — among others that give insight into Cadotte’s state of mind at the time — was contained in text messages presented as evidence in his murder trial at the Montreal courthouse on Monday.
A nurse has testified Cadotte admitted killing Jocelyne Lizotte on Feb. 20, 2017, by suffocating her with a pillow because he could no longer bear seeing her suffer from Alzheimer’s.
Lizotte, 60, had been suffering from the disease for more than a decade. Cadotte has been charged with second-degree murder.
In 2016, Cadotte, now 57, requested that Lizotte receive a medically assisted death but was turned down because her case did not meet two of six necessary criteria: She was unable to express herself and she was not considered to be in the final stages of her life.
Also, a nurse did not agree with Cadotte on how much pain Lizotte might have been living with while he presented the application.
Lizotte’s son, 44-year-old Danyck Desautels, testified he supported Cadotte in his efforts in applying for a medically assisted death.
Danyck Desautels, the son of Jocelyne Lizotte, testified he supported applying for a medically assisted death.
The jury was given a copy of text messages Cadotte and Desautels exchanged early in 2016 as Cadotte went through the application process.
“Me, I see this like a freedom for her because she is a prisoner in her own body,” Desautels wrote to Cadotte.
“You are not in my shoes. I feel like a murderer,” Cadotte replied.
“Me, I don’t see you that way, but I can understand how you feel” Desautels wrote back.
“It still hurts even though, for me, that is no longer her,” Cadotte replied.
Three days later, Cadotte expressed frustration with the process of applying for a medically assisted death. In another exchange with Desautels he wrote: “I am impulsive. For two years now I have been carrying around a syringe and I will finish it myself if I find the courage.”
“No, don’t do that. It will only bring you trouble,” Desautels wrote back, while offering encouragement that he saw the timing of Quebec’s Act Respecting End-of-Life Care, which had come into force, as a good sign.
Last week, one of Desautel’s uncles testified Cadotte had told him in 2016 he often carried around a syringe and had considered using it to kill his wife.
Lizotte died at the Centre d’hébergement Émilie-Gamelin, a nursing home where she resided since 2014. She spent her final years strapped to either a bed or a chair to prevent her from harming herself as she rocked back and forth all day long.
In her final year she was unable to recognize people, and Desautels told the jury he reduced the number of times he would visit his mother after she mistook him for someone else.
“In her head I was her first husband (Desautels’s father, who died in 1996). She tried to kiss me,” Desautels said.
“I didn’t go to see her often because when I would go it would take me a week to get over it.”
Pathologist Caroline Tanguay confirmed Jocelyne Lizotte died of suffocation.
The last witness to testify for the Crown on Monday was Caroline Tanguay, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Lizotte’s body.
Tanguay said she found many signs to confirm Lizotte died of suffocation, likely from someone having held a pillow over her mouth, as Cadotte had confessed to the nurse. One sign, Tanguay said, was that Lizotte had lesions inside her mouth indicating someone had applied pressure on her face.
Tanguay was the 15th witness to testify for the Crown. When she finished, prosecutor Geneviève Langlois declared the Crown’s case closed.
Defence lawyers Elfride Duclervil and Nicolas Welt informed the jury Cadotte will begin presenting a defence on Wednesday.
The jury began hearing evidence on Jan. 15.
