1st Degree Murder Charge In Double Homicide

PEI Senior Crown Attorney Gerald Quinn Q.C. statement (CBC News video)  – We’ve charged two counts of planned and premeditated first degree murder.

Two victims were shot in the father’s home, the father and the son, with a 22 caliber hand gun and by reason of the investigation, which was thoroughly done by the RCMP, we assert that it is planned and premeditated murder.

The defendant, from our perspective, gave an exculpatory statement, where he articulated the motivation about an occurrence that took place with the grandfather of the younger victim and the father of the older victim here, who was involved in a motor vehicle accident with Mr. Russo’s family in 1970.

Mr. McGuigan, who had been charged with criminal negligence causing death, was found guilty after a trial of dangerous operation.

He was sentenced to 9 months jail in Georgetown and received a 12-month driving prohibition.

See Vuozzo Shot Father and Son With 22

Mr. Vuozzo would have been an infant, only a couple of years old, but in the motor vehicle with his mother, father and two sisters, one of which, Cathy, is a senior sister of 9 years of age, was ejected through the front windshield and died on the scene.

Mr. Vuozzo, from the Crown’s perspective, gave a fully exculpatory statement after Charter caution, articulating that as his motive, to characterize it as a revenge-homicide, or them as revenge-homicides.

This is what he articulated was (his) motivation.

The characterization of the revenge murder, which the Crown will rely on that motive to prove its assertion that both were planned and premeditated murders.

The fact is Mr. Vuozzo did not know these two men.

He did not know them, and neither of these two men were anything other than a father and son communicating which they did every evening and having discussions in the father’s home about work as fathers and sons often do.

He walked into the home and he shot both multiple times and killed them, so from the Crown’s perspective, it is planned and premeditated murder and that’s only our theory of the case. That’s how we will proceed with it.

These two men, from all accounts, were good, hardworking men, had no involvement whatsoever in the motor vehicle accident years ago at all.

This gentleman had no familiarity with them other than knowing who they were. But this particular case, it’s unusual in the sense that although the gentleman articulated his motivation, it makes absolutely no sense from the perspective of selecting two innocent men who had no involvement in a perceived wrong that his direct perception as a 2-year-old would be minimal at the time. They had no involvement in it.

They were in the father’s home having discussion like they did frequently, and were shot dead.

The facts reveal that Mrs. McGuigan, the wife of the senior victim and the mother of the junior victim, was in the household, although not where the homicides were conducted, but came into the room shortly thereafter.

The defendant had taken flight at that point. It would have been devastating and it is devastating for this family, all of this family.

It’s a large family. They’re very close. They’re very loving of one another and well known and good reputations in the community, men of faith who were just shot dead on a perceived antiquated motivation that, from the Crown’s perspective, makes absolutely no sense at all.

(Statement of Gerald Quinn, Q.C. Senior Crown Attorney, Prince Edward Island)

Video is copyright CBC News allowed use as Fair Dealing under the Canada Copyright Act, Section “29.2 Fair dealing for the purpose of news reporting does not infringe copyright if the following are mentioned: (a) the source; and (b) if given in the source, the name of the (i) author, in the case of a work, (ii) performer, in the case of a performer’s performance, (iii) maker, in the case of a sound recording, or (iv) broadcaster, in the case of a communication signal.”

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network