A Cape Breton man has pleaded guilty to being an accessory in the death of a young woman whose body was found in a hockey bag five years ago.
Thomas Ted Barrett was initially charged with second-degree murder in the death of 21-year-old Laura Jessome. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of accessory after the fact Wednesday in Sydney.
The Crown said witnesses failed to co-operate and it has no forensic evidence against Barrett, so it has withdrawn the second-degree murder charge.
“Nothing the criminal justice system could've done would have brought her back,” said Crown attorney Kathy Pentz. “(The family is) disappointed, as is the Crown, to be quite frank.”
Jessome’s body was found in a hockey bag in the Mira River on May 25, 2012.
Two other men were charged in connection with her death. Morgan James McNeil was initially charged with second-degree murder, but he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter in September 2016. Robert Edwin Matheson pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact in September 2014.
“Based on the evidence that we had, unfortunately that was all that we could prove,” said Pentz.
Barrett is due to be sentenced on Oct. 31. The Crown says accessory after the fact carries a much lighter sentence, from a minimum of a day behind bars to a maximum of 14 years.
Barrett is already serving a life sentence for second-degree murder in the death of a 19-year-old woman in a separate case. Brett MacKinnon’s remains were found in 2008 near a Glace Bay hiking trail, two years after she disappeared. Barrett was sentenced in April 2016 to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years in MacKinnon’s death.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Kyle Moore.
