A man accused of breaking into a 78-year-old Vancouver woman’s home twice in one week and killing her won’t have his statements to police used as evidence at his trial after a BC judge decided he wasn’t treated appropriately leading up to the interrogation.
Pascal Jean Claude Bouthillette is facing a first-degree murder charge in connection with the death of Usha Singh.
It’s alleged he broke into her home for the first time on January 26, 2021, when she wasn’t home, according to the BC Supreme Court decision posted online this week. After the break-in, her bedside drawer containing wallets and valuables was missing.
A neighbour alerted the Vancouver Police Department, and officers were sent to the scene. The intruder wasn’t found, though.
Several days later, on January 31, it’s alleged Bouthillette broke into her home a second time along with another man. It’s believed the two men dressed as police officers to gain entry to the home around 6 am.
Later that morning, just after 11 am, police found the 78-year-old woman on her bathroom floor. She’d suffered head injuries and had a plastic zip-tie around one of her wrists. She was taken to hospital, where she later died.
Part of what tied Bouthillette to the case was the intruder’s shoes. Surveillance footage from both break-ins showed the home invader wearing “distinctive” red running shoes. A similar pair of red runners was found in the trailer where Bouthillette was living at the time of his arrest on February 2, 2021.
During Bouthillette’s arrest and subsequent interrogation, he made statements that officers thought could be an admission of guilt.
Several hours after Bouthillette’s arrest, during which he stood outside in the cold February rain, went into heroin withdrawal in the interview room, and briefly fell asleep before an officer brought him coffee, the following exchange happened between him and an officer:
Officer: “Why are you callin’ yourself an idiot? What happened?”
Bouthillette: “That’s what it is.”
Officer: “M’kay.”
Bouthillette: “F*ck. If I did the crime, uh, I’ll, I’ll do the time, that’s all.”
Officer: “So I think, and, uh, tell me if, I think you said you did the crime, so you have to do the time, is that what you said?”
Bouthilette: “Yeah.”
Officer: “’Kay. What, what crime? What did you do? Help me understand what happened in that house, Pascal.”
Bouthillette (after a short pause): “All my life I asked for help.”
After reviewing footage and records of what happened following Bouthillette’s arrest, the BC Supreme Court judge decided the statements weren’t made voluntarily and that the police’s treatment essentially took away his choice to remain silent.
The factors weighing into that decision included Bouthillette being kept out in the cold, barefoot in handcuffs, and wearing only a T-shirt and shorts. The physical discomfort was likely exacerbated by spending close to an hour in handcuffs. What’s more, he couldn’t speak to his lawyer right away — there was a delay of about an hour and a half due to processing.
He told officers he hadn’t slept in two days and had taken heroin shortly before the arrest and would be passing into withdrawal. He was also obviously tired, telling officers this and falling asleep in the interview room when briefly left alone.
“There was no urgency to conducting the interview in such circumstances, as Mr. Bouthillette had only been in police custody approximately three hours when the interview commenced,” the judge wrote. “Despite all of this, Mr. Bouthillette was never offered the option of rest and respite. [The officer] simply pressed on with his rapport building questioning.”
Taken together, the judge thought the circumstances surrounding Bouthillette’s arrest gave rise to reasonable doubt about the voluntariness of his statements.
“The overall aura surrounding Mr. Bouthillette’s interview, coupled as it was with his fatigue, his consumption of drugs and his treatment before the interview, is that resistance was futile,” the judge wrote.
The judge ruled that Bouthillette’s statements during the interrogation won’t be admissible as evidence during his first-degree murder trial for Singh’s killing.