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 Chris Little (centre) has been found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his estranged wife, Julie Crocker (right), and Paula Menendez (left). (HO) |
NEWMARKET — A stalking husband who strangled an innocent woman to conceal the murder of his estranged wife was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder today.
Chris Little bowed his head as a jury convicted him on both counts in the Feb. 12, 2007 slayings of his wife Julie Crocker and Paula Menendez, the estranged wife of Crocker’s boyfriend, sportscaster Rick Ralph.
The 12-person panel deliberated for two days and two hours before reaching a verdict that brought tears to the Menendez’s sisters, Carolina and Claudia, their parents and Judy Crocker, Julie’s mother.
Little was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
The sentence will be formally passed tomorrow when the victim impact statements are read in court.
“This senseless tragedy shattered our lives forever,” said Judy Crocker, reading her victim impact statement outside court afterwards.
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“Two wonderful young women, Julie and Paula, both with successful careers, loving families, incredible potential, had their futures stolen from them on Feb. 12, 2007. Their lives were short but full of love, meaning and accomplishment.
“We cherish their memory and they will never be forgotten,” Crocker said.
Both victims’ families were outraged by the Little's portrayal of Julie Crocker, as a philandering wife, and Menendez, as the author of a staged murder-suicide.
“There’s not one person who knew the loving, kind Paula who thought she did this,” said her twin sister Carolina Stubbs.
“She was a wonderful young woman who was kind, generous and thoughtful," said Crocker. "In fact it was her kindness and concern for her husband, her efforts to make things easier for him, which led to the prolongation of a marriage that had been essentially over for a very long time."
Julie’s murder has deprived her two young daughters of a fiercely-devoted mom, who spent the last night of her life enjoying a sleep-over with those children in her bed, watching a comic movie and savouring popcorn.
“This was the Julie we knew and loved,” Crocker said.
Paula, whose friends, Barb Griffin, Leslie Wood and others, recalled her “innocence and ability to hear about their problems without judging them.
“She was so loving and so easy-going,” said Wood.
“She didn’t have an enemy in the world and an army of friends who have reached out to us from our days at Brother Andre high school in Markham where we all attended,” said Wood.
They were frustrated that Little’s defence depicted Paula, an innocent victim — who’d never hurt anyone and never had an enemy — as the culprit.
“It was so frustrating that a victim could be torn apart in such a character assassination by the justice system,” said Griffin.
The prosecution argued that Little plotted to kill his wife Crocker once she rejected his last bid to reconcile their faltering union four days earlier. Crocker appeared ready to continue her relationship with Ralph and divorce Little.
Little attempted to stage his double slayings as a murder-suicide, blaming it on Menendez, who was simply an innocent bystander to a love triangle, said Crown attorney Douglas Kasko in his closing address.
“The end of his dream. The end of reuniting with his wife,” Kasko said of the homicidal motive after detailing the lengths to which Little, 38, went to reconcile with his cheating wife. Little exhibited “stalking” behaviour, such as planting GPS devices in her car, recording devices and using a semen-testing kit in his quest to catch her red-handed and document her infidelity.
“Who else would have a motive, but for him, to kill Julie Crocker?”
Little killed Menendez, 34, and his 33-year-old wife and tried to pin it on the innocent physiotherapist. Kasko argued Little “mistakenly” believed Menendez felt the same about her shattered marriage as Little felt about his, when in fact she and Ralph had an amicable split.
Little had also sought counselling — not because he wanted to get over Crocker but because he wanted help getting her back, noted Kasko.
Last week, defence lawyer John Rosen closed his arguments by suggesting that Menendez slashed Crocker’s throat in a jealous fit over the affair between her and Ralph before hanging herself in Crocker’s garage.
Kasko used largely circumstantial evidence to paint Menendez as a victim of murder, not a suicidal killer.
Since splitting from Ralph four months before she was found dead Feb. 12, 2007, Menendez was excited about dating and opening a physiotherapy clinic outside the home they once shared, Kasko said.
In the hours before she died, Menendez spoke with her twin sister Carolina on the phone about plans for the coming days, about how she wanted a call as soon as her sister’s baby was born via a pre-arranged C-section delivery.
Rosen argued Menendez left her home without her vehicle and went to Crocker and Little’s Markham house.
Menendez was found without any socks and with blood on the back of her boot — proof, Kasko suggested, that she did not leave her home alive, that someone with bloody hands put that boot on for her.
Kasko pointed to the cuts and bruises found about Menendez’s body during her autopsy.
“These bruises are consistent with her being attacked from behind, falling to her knees and striking her head on an object,” Kasko said.
Menendez’s diary never mentions the name of Julie Crocker, argued Kasko.
In his love letters to Crocker the month before her murder, Little wrote, “What I am and where I am is totally and completely in love with you. This is the part I’m supposed to tell you I can live without you. But that would be a lie to you my love.”