Some family statements read before Christopher Little's sentencing for murdering his wife and her lover's spouse were toned down at the insistence of his lawyer and a prosecutor, reporters were told yesterday.
Unlike in the U.S., lawyer John Rosen said, "we don't have victim impact statements that advocate a position or speak to penalty. They don't bash the accused."
Rosen has declared plans to appeal.
Andrea Berger, a childhood friend of Paula Menendez, told The Sun, "I was honoured to have been asked by the family to speak on their behalf."
In another statement, Claudia Johnston said the "nightmare" murder left her despondent and threatened her marriage and relationship with her baby daughter.
The Alberta resident was traumatized, in a "very dark, very grim and very lonely place," needing hospital care.
"I have lost my baby sister, my friend, my confidant."
'SENSITIVE PERSON'
From Connecticut, Carolina Stubbs called her identical twin "a beautiful, caring, sensitive person.
"I found myself at the age of 34 feeling an extreme loneliness that I have never felt before.
"My sister was a completely innocent victim."
Judy Crocker's statement, read by prosecutor Rob Scott, acknowledged her daughter Julie Crocker made some "wrong decisions," but much of what court heard "was not true."
She wrote of her kindness towards Little after their marriage had collapsed, plus devotion to others.
Her two little girls had their lives "shattered forever."
Expressing pain, anger and desperation, Jaime Mendendez said forensic closeup pictures of his strangled daughter's disfigured face "will remain stamped in our brains for the rest of our lives."
He said his wife Monica was left extremely depressed and crying.
"There is no equitable way to measure the value of a lost human life," he said.
