The defence lawyer representing a man who strangled his 17-year-old girlfriend has asked the jury at his murder trial to find him either not criminally responsible or guilty of manslaughter.
Closing arguments in the trial of Jonathan Mahautière, 22, began at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday.
Mahautière is charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Gabrielle Dufresne-Élie, who tried to end their relationship on June 7, 2014.
That day, the two attended a couples therapy session during which Dufresne-Èlie stated her intention to break up. However, she later had sex with Mahautière at a Montreal motel, where he killed her.
“We have admitted that he committed an illegal act by strangling her,” defence lawyer Marie-Hélène Giroux told the eight men and three women of the jury.
“What we don’t admit is that he did it voluntarily.”
Giroux argued evidence during the seven-week trial supports Mahautière’s claim that he lost control of his body when he strangled the Dufresne-Èlie.
Gabrielle Dufresne-Élie was 15 when she met Jonathan Mahautière at the Radisson métro station, and they became a couple.
Giroux provided a long summary of Mahautière’s testimony and highlighted documents and testimony from doctors, educators and relatives who said he had a difficult childhood that included episodes when he would lose contact with reality for between 30 and 60 minutes.
Psychiatrist Pierre St-Jean, who treated Mahautière for several years, testified he appeared to be disconnected from reality when he would suffer the attacks, sometimes at school.
The episodes were so intense, St-Jean said, that he had Mahautière tested for epilepsy.
Mahautière was diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder as well as an adjustment disorder from a young age.
“It was like he was having convulsions. It was like he couldn’t see what was in front of him. It was like he was possessed,” Giroux said, quoting from St-Jean’s testimony.
She reminded the jury that Mahautière’s mother left her family when he was two years old and was distant whenever he visited on weekends after his parents split up.
Mahautière testified his mother disappeared altogether when he was eight, something that would trouble him throughout his life.
He said an uncle ran into his mother by chance in New York and convinced her to reconnect with her son, but she talked to him only once.
Mahautière told the jury he was raised by a distant father and a stepmother who “left him in his own corner to do his little things.”
His impulsive and explosive behaviour from an early age saw him removed from daycare.
He attended kindergarten at a regular school but his parents were soon informed he would have to transfer to a special school for children with behavioural problems.
He was placed in a school for children with severe disorders, and staff there appeared to manage his symptoms by making sure he took his medication as prescribed, which wasn’t happening at his home.
He left the school at 12, and insisted on going to a regular high school. But his impulsive behaviour returned and he was expelled.
At 14 he decided to stop taking medication completely.
He met Dufresne-Èlie at the Radisson métro station when she was 15, and they became a couple.
Giroux noted they broke up at least four times during their relationship and that, near the end, Mahautière told friends that Dufresne-Èlie was “ambivalent” about their status when, in reality, her Facebook exchanges with him showed she wanted to break up.
The Crown is to make its closing arguments after the defence is done.