Crime Beat: Karissa Boudreau, up with the angels | S2 E5

good evening i'm anthony robart this is crimebeat tonight a mother makes a desperate public plea to her missing daughter we just want you home safe please a father develops his own suspicions things never made sense to me from day one and the undercover operation that cracks the case when we saw it go down there were tears in our eyes [Music] and now here's crime beat reporter ross lord with carissa boudreau up with the angels the lahave river winds its way inland from the north atlantic along its backs at the point where the river begins to narrow the town of bridgewater nova scotia about an hour's drive south of halifax and farther south along the coast the town of shelburne home to paul budrow father of carissa you know my mother always told me said you could always turn a negative situation into a positive thing well she was the same way she she liked to laugh she liked to play she liked to hop skip and you know sing while she was running and things like that you know and her and her and i were very close you know i've had hey i've wore the tiaras carissa was paul boudreau's firstborn she she was daddy's little girl she had she had a dog named lady and i i can remember her heart skipping along and singing you know la la i love lady but she stinks to her father carissa was a normal child with a rebellious streak she enjoyed music teddy bears and birthday sleepovers i don't need to hang in dark places to remember somebody i don't want to remember somebody in the dark times i want to remember when they're happy skipping down the hallway singing their songs you know that that was carissa paul tries his best to block out bad memories and think about happy times he shared with his daughter when we were camping up in yarmouth one time that's our dog we had to take with us she was due of course we didn't know when and we went to the theater and we come back in the dark and here's a bunch of screaming puppies all in in in the campground like and well that was very that was her thing she you know she scooped them up and got them warm i think that was what she aspired to be when she got older was probably a veterinarian carissa's parent said split up early on she lived primarily with her mom in bridgewater but paul played an active role in her upbringing she worked i babysat and things like that like and then we got along that way it was carissa who didn't always get along with her mom in her early adolescence she'd asked to move in with her dad but in grade six after living with him for five months she changed her mind she missed her mother you know i had no idea what was going on at the time down there and i always want what's best for my you know i can't force you to stay here if you want to go back to your mothers and stay that's that's fine i want you to be happy a few months go by and carissa appears to be settling back into classes at bridgewater elementary school but then the news a parent never wants to hear how did you learn that carissa was reported missing do you remember i'm pretty sure it was her mother that called me in and said that she was missing i'm like what do you mean missing carissa was last seen in the mall parking lot in front of soby's store here in bridgewater on la have street she was involved in an argument with her mother and mom went inside and to make a few purchases when she came out after 10 15 minutes uh carissa was gone um at this point there are no signs of no signs of foul play or anything like that but we have not ruled out any options we are exploring all options uh at this point um what's most disturbing to us is that she was dressed inappropriately for the weather she is five feet in height 130 pounds straight shoulder length brown hair and she was last seen wearing a black hoodie black vest blue jeans and she had pink crocs on her feet well i mean i'm not a survivalist anything but i spent a lot of time in the woods and i know a wind chill of minus 18 or whatever it was that night with heavy snow and that stuff with a hoodie and a pair of crocs how far are you gonna get you know one kilometer radius before you freeze to death that's why i said if if she if that story was was true they would have found it right off the bat things never made sense to me from day one we all love you we all love carissa we love you your grandparents are looking for you all of us are i don't know where you are but just come home or call or something please all your friends are looking for you and we're all worried we just want you home safe it's not like we're gonna get mad we just want you home safe please coming up after the break people report sightings of carissa and the community rallies together to try and find her twelve-year-old karissa boudreau has been reported missing by her mother penny penny says they'd had an argument that she'd left carissa in the car when she went to grab some groceries when she returned she says carissa was gone now back to ross lord with carissa boudreau up with the angels [Music] given her age and the weather conditions and the fact that we have not heard anything from her since we this has become public we we definitely have concerns so at this point in time i'd like to to have clarissa's mom speak directly to carissa uh see penny i don't know really what to say other than i hope she's listening i don't know if i can do this okay that argument whatever it was was certainly nowhere near as important as what we're here talking about now do you want to put that in perspective was it it wasn't like a big argument per se i took her for a drive that day just to try to have a heart-to-heart with her in a place like in a car she can't get away and slam her door which she usually does to me i just wanted to try to reach out to her as a mom and set some things straight as far as typical teenage things or whatever and she didn't like what i had to say i mean most kids don't and she didn't want to go in the store with me which was fine i mean she doesn't usually like to go in so the type of emotional account that resonates with any parent to put it in plain english not knowing where your kids are is horrible because she didn't go anywhere without me taking her so i always knew where she was police lost a ground search of the area but snow was slowing their efforts especially for search helicopters it is grounded due to the weather conditions low ceiling in the shoeby area [Music] we have a little higher ceiling here but unfortunately they can't get off the ground they can't make it here so with every passing hour growing concern about carissa's safety finally the weather started to clear the river started to thaw and when it did divers were sent in most of us have kids and uh you know from time to time there's things that happen in our lives as well but you know we do this because we want to help people and you know we can make a difference sometimes and hopefully here we're going to find out that she's not here and that she's somewhere safe at the time of her disappearance carissa and penny had been living with penny's boyfriend vernon mccumber penny reenacted the events of january 27 for investigators explaining how she'd taken her daughter for drive they'd gone to this grocery store surveillance camera images obtained through a freedom of information request show penny went inside while carissa stayed in the car penny said when she returned carissa was gone we have no reason to to believe at this point that there's any any reason to disbelieve what mom has told us still no answers for the bridgewater police service they had almost exhausted all of their leads that they could do in a missing person they had interviewed many many people classmates relatives friends teachers whoever whoever they they could try to get some information from at the time john elliott was with the southwest nova major crime unit and based in the pneuminus rcmp detachment they investigated as well sightings of caruso that people were calling in there was quite a few sightings and they were from nova scotia new brunswick ontario people were calling that thought they had sightings of carissa parents pitched in to help find carissa putting up posters creating pages on social media just makes you worry like i said when you have kids you your own especially well for anybody but when you have kids of your own my my kids walk home to and from school a lot of kids around here hang out with older people and she could be just staying with a friend or she could have known somebody farther away and went with them even the mayor sensed the shift it's a mood of anxiety and certainly moms and dads of young folks in the community are fearful at this kind of thing where this kind of thing could lead it had now been five days since carissa's mom reported her missing at a second news conference penny made another public plea i just want to tell you that you have lots of people who love you and want you home if not chris herself somebody let me know it's hard to not know where your kid is i'm done two weeks after carissa disappeared a break in the case a horrific discovery a woman reported her nine-year-old boy had seen human toes sticking out of the snow on a riverbank at a turn-off area investigators were at the scene again this morning of a discovery of human remains in bridgewater nova scotia but the discovery on saturday still hasn't cleared up the mystery of what happened to carissa boudreau year old girl missing for more than two weeks it's a young female caucasian police say answers about the remains found on this riverbank won't come until at least wednesday after nova scotia's chief medical examiner conducts an autopsy on the remains but is it carissa the question is on everyone's mind in this small town [Music] coming up police identify the body and reveal the cause of death sending chills through the community two weeks after twelve-year-old carissa boudreau is reported missing the discovery that everyone is dreading human remains here's ross lord with carissa boudreau up with the angels the autopsy on the frozen body discovered on the banks of bridgewater's la have river confirms the remains as carissa boudreaux because carissa's body was found just outside the town limits the rcmp is called in to lead the investigation i was hoping at that point that it was maybe misadventure on her part [Music] you know she injured and fell down the bank whatever it may be i didn't want it to be a homicide that's for sure the chief medical examiner concludes the cause of death was asphyxiation and the carissa had been strangled curious clothing had been arranged in a way that suggested she'd been sexually assaulted but there are no other injuries i hadn't been to an autopsy in some years so i i i kind of put my hand up if you want to use that phrase to say i'll go john elliott willingly attends carissa's autopsy sparing younger officers whose own children were around her age his children were older i didn't realize the effect that it would have on me i went to the autopsy they're never something anybody wants to attend certainly not something that anybody would enjoy but being a child a 12 year old girl it was it was particularly hard it was devastating [Music] when it was over we were departing the uh the autopsy room and at that point um i was i'll say the last police officer to leave the room um there was uh one of uh the pathologist's attendance in the background but carissa was still on the table her body was still on the table and um as i as i left the room i looked back and [Music] uh her head was raised and her eyes were still open so it was that scene uh or that picture that i have in my head and it was that picture that i said to penny a few days later i was the last one to see her basically with her eyes open the entire family was devastated by what happened including carissa's grandmother paul's mother suzanne the sweet little girl she loves is what she is well we're just trying to take it moment by moment sometimes it gets overwhelming and we just don't know how we're going to go on and then i guess we calm down for a while and we know we have to get through this at carissa's funeral an overflow crowd of hundreds heard her favorite song the one she called her happy song inside paul could not bring himself to view carissa's casket i myself i didn't go see her i didn't want to ruin the image of my beautiful little girl in my mind [Music] check from john's team starts to come up with a theory of what might have happened there was some thought that possibly penny boudreau carissa's mother and or her boyfriend vernon mccumber may be involved there from the bridgewater investigation bridgewater police service investigation there was just no other suspects and they had they had interviewed a lot of people there was just no reason for this young girl to go missing over the next couple of months for sure we we did look at other possible suspects anybody in the area that was strange anybody that had any type of criminal record involving any type of sexual offenses or you know with children we looked at all those possibilities but they kept coming back to penny i recall quite vividly my wife actually after the news the press release was done saying there's something wrong there penny's story of an argument with carissa right before she disappeared stood out to john the times that i met her of course she's possibly suspect she was very quiet she she asked very few questions uh especially when we told her that the body a body was found she never did ask how how carissa had died she never asked that question once at any time in public carissa's dad paul went along with penny's official explanation but privately something seemed off it didn't make sense and and once i got to bridgewater and seen her mother's body language and that stuff she was more concerned with with vernon and vernon had blew his knee out or heard his leg or something like that and she was more worried about attending to him than she was about the amber alert that was on the radio when her name was across radio and the amber alert that's one of the times that i kind of lost my composure the family history is unusual paul and penny parted during her pregnancy she entered a relationship with his brother shane they split up when carissa was 10. you know somewhere along the lines whether whether it was the experiences and the people she met after her and my brother part it she became an altogether different person you know that heartless side came out into her more and more i guess as as it went on and i know how susceptible she is to any suggestion when it comes to male when it comes to any male paying attention to her in december carissa had expressed her own thoughts in a series of handwritten notes police discovered them in carissa's bedroom during a search of her mom's apartment so on december 2nd carissa wrote and you'll see it's dated december 2nd 08 but it was actually an 07. i'm mad because mama's engaged to vernon mum made me move here mom broke up with shane i want a bigger room i don't like vernon living with us the end my life is ruined by carissa heart and star she said i'm sad because and this was written on december 2nd i'm sad because one i have to go to school tomorrow two i miss shane and tracy three i have to go to bed at 9 30 instead of 11 4 i live in an apartment five there's no room for my stuff six i feel crowded seven end of story my life sucks until we live in a house bye carissa the bridgewater apartment the three had shared was becoming a source of valuable evidence people upstairs said that they argued quite a bit they could hear them arguing and all that we had hearsay from neighbors of vernon saying things like i know you did it penny why did you get me involved those type of comments that were heard by other neighbors through the apartment walls some of that fighting took place during the initial investigation by the bridgewater police service and some of it as well when we took over the investigation it also that was still still going on rcmp brought in a criminal profiler to compile a thorough outline of what they believed happened but in their pursuit of the truth investigators were still stonewalled we had cooperation up to a point with penny and vernon but that cooperation ended both on the 14th of february when we brought them both in and and actually arrested them when asked you know did you have anything to do with curiss's murder her response was basically my lawyer advised me to not say anything she never denied it that she had nothing to do she just said my lawyer advised me not to say anything about it if she didn't have anything to do with it all she had to say was no i didn't do with it i didn't do it but never once the day after police arrested penny and vernon they released the couple there was not enough information to lay charges as they were being released penny and vernon were walking out the back door of the detachment and i was probably 15 or 20 feet away anyways myself and another corporal actually had walked them to the door and i told penny at that time to keep looking over her shoulder because we were always going to be there then came a seismic shift in the investigation and we thought well we've exhausted everything else we need to get to the truth and an undercover operation is just that to find the truth to see if penny was involved or if she wasn't involved or if vernon knew or if he didn't know so we were into the investigation for a few weeks before the undercover operation started when we return investigators uncover the truth and carissa's haunting final words welcome back to crime beat at the time of her murder 12 year old carissa had been living with her mother penny and penny's boyfriend vernon with suspicions mounting police go undercover here's ross lore with carissa boudreau up with the angels well the intent of the operation as i said is always to get the truth and that's what we were going after the rcmp had opened a mr big sting operation where undercover officers pose as criminals after gaining the trust of a suspect the undercover operators promised to make the problem go away first they discuss exactly what happened mr big stings are controversial courts have ruled some have been abusive and can lead to false confessions john elliott says he and his rcmp colleagues took precautions to preserve fairness the undercover operators themselves actually know nothing about what they're doing they're more or less instructed to stay out or you know don't watch media reports or anything like that they come into the operation fairly blind john became the go-between from the main investigation to undercover cops the undercover operators came to me and said vernon mccumber had nothing to do with the homicide of carissa boudreau he may have had suspicions of some sort but he had nothing to do with that homicide the focus was then changed to penny four months into the sting penny finally told the truth we were actually in an adjoining room at the hotel so we did have a live feed video feed that was coming from the room where penny was and we were watching it unfold we heard penny in her own words say that she had murdered her daughter carissa and uh it was um yeah it's kind of a very surreal moment for me to hear that you know we were we were very happy but at the same time it was a sad thing to hear when we saw it go down we looked at each other and there were tears in our eyes that you know we had we had solved it we were we were going to give the family some justice even those moments of relief were tainted by penny boudreau's shocking behavior sometimes jovial as she described what she did and actually reenacted it and it was it was quite sobering to hear those words for sure do you think in those moments when you say she was jovial was she maybe trying to impress who she thought this crime boss was or or is that something you think she actually felt uh hard to say really um she probably trying to impress for sure because she's looking to be part of a crime family the prosecution team was also confident penny's confession would stand up in court she provided hold back evidence that is evidence that the police have uncovered that they have not put into the public domain and that only the killer would know she provided those details and as well that she provided information that led to the recovery of physical evidence of the crime that supported the confession that she provided no video or audio recording of penny's mr big confession has ever been released neither has the transcript but we do have the agreed-upon statement of facts in it the graphic details of what penny did to her daughter a summary of what penny disclosed to an undercover operator during the sting operation after buying juice and bacon at sobies penny described returning to the car where carissa was waiting for her out of the trunk penny grabbed a piece of beige twine and put it in her pocket after driving carissa around once it was dark she drove to a secluded spot they both got out of the car penny said she pushed tackled carissa and carissa fell on her back the only thing carissa said to her was mommy don't penny said carissa was scared penny said she was face to face with her daughter [Music] which makes what she did next all the more horrific penny used her knees to pin carissa down then she strangled her with the twine penny told the undercover officer that when there was no more breathing she dragged carissa's body and put her in the passenger side of the vehicle then she drove back into town penny then drove to a second location by the river some of carissa's clothing had come off in the process of moving the body but penny left her daughter undressed she felt this would make people think carissa had been sexually assaulted she said she rolled carissa's body over the edge of the bank knowing that the weather was calling for lots of snow and that she wouldn't be found for a while among the key holdback evidence the position of the body and the state in which carissa was discovered and knowledge of a pink croc left behind at the first scene penny indicated she had been considering the murder for several days [Applause] penny boudreau was charged with first degree murder accused of killing carissa in a planned and deliberate manner she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder a case of a mother killing a child and especially an adolescent child is is a rarity you will find cases of of child abuse more often committed by men than by women cases where there's abuse of a of a minor child someone who is you know a toddler or an infant usually under under five years of age but to find a case where a mother kills her adolescent child is without precedent before sentencing seasoned prosecutors struggled to present the facts to the court people started to sob and you could hear it and again it's just something that you have to steal yourself too in order to get through the job that you that you have to do the image of penny her knees on carissa's chest as carissa said her final words how do you go from being a loving mother to standing on your child and and strangling to death the last words where mommy don't mommy don't yes it sends chills it sends chills even to this day those words um i still can't say them penny's guilty pleas spared friends and families from an agonizing trial it would have been a long drawn-out process that as bad as it is it would have probably made the situation worse the judge said herself crocodile tears and that's all it's ever been and that's all it ever will be penny have you got anything to say she never showed any signs of remorse she did say she was sorry in court at the day of the proceedings but it was weak and what was she sorry for that she got caught or that she actually murdered her daughter and it wasn't until we showed her a bit of the video of her talking to the crime boss describing what she did that she she finally broke down and uh and she even wrote a letter to carissa that was the uh interviewer asked her to write a letter to carissa and and give her feelings but wasn't much of a letter the feeling of relief here in bridgewater is tainted by new feelings of disgust members of the community even experienced police officers saying they're at a total loss to understand how a mother could do this to her daughter betrayal for the thousands of people who supported penny to the point of donating their hard-earned dollars to her fabricated campaign to find her daughter every single day that little girl was gone we all prayed for her and we're just hoping and hoping that she was going to come home safe i am a mother too and you fight you walk away you come back and things are better you don't take give life and take life no one could understand why a 34 year old grocery clerk with no previous criminal record would commit such an atrocity penny suggested to undercover cops she did it to save her relationship with vernon that he gave her an ultimatum to pick either him or carissa but vernon said he had no idea penny would murder carissa he denies he gave penny an ultimatum saying he only told penny that the fighting between her and carissa could not continue she catered to his every little every little win and pretty much as i say she she was a robot to him i don't think in for one moment that he thought you know you're going to have to murder your daughter if you want me to stay and it was i think he just meant look have carissa go back to her father or stepfather and you and i can live together but if you don't want to do that then i'm going to move on a psychiatric assessment found penny had borderline personality traits including fear of abandonment distrust of others and dissociative experiences she later told the parole board she lost her mother to suicide at a young age but at sentencing nova scotia's supreme court justice margaret stewart noted there was no evidence of health issues anger management problems drug use or depression justice stewart concluded ms boudreau is capable of manipulation and articulate in doing so terminating a young vibrant life full of promise for penny boudreau's selfish desire to guarantee a love life that had no room for a child justice stewart added any remorse flows from having an overwhelming case against her addressing penny boudreau directly the judge said you can never call yourself mother in conjunction with carissa's name again and the words mommy don't from a trusting and loving carissa are there to haunt you for the rest of your natural life coming up ensuring carissa's legacy lives on and penny boudreau's increasing freedoms the town of bridgewater nova scotia betrayed by a mother faking tears and pleading for help and securing the safe return of her daughter in january 2009 penny boudreau pleaded guilty to murdering carissa [Music] we now return to ross lord with the conclusion of carissa boudreau up with the angels in bridgewater 12 years have passed but the trauma remains from a case that still defies belief we're still dealing with it we know from coast to coast murders happen but not murders of children by parents and so it's just we're still struggling to process it the current mayor of bridgewater was a city councilor at the time of carissa's murder so we do have a mothers of angels place of reflection down in one of our parks and and that's where people are going because they still they still lay flowers where her body was found to this day it's shaken how he sees the world his three children were close to carissa's age my struggles now as a parent where i i'm actually not able to sit through a movie where a child is being hurt and i think there's lots of people having the same kind of trauma if you will from those events i went to her gravesite on two occasions that was part of dealing with what i had to deal with she was just a normal 12 year old girl she wanted to grow up to be a veterinarian she loved animals i think it's important that she be remembered other than maybe a statistic in nova scotia crime reports or something i think carissa has to be remembered and then uh i got word that penny boudreaux her mother was applying for parole and had been granted some escorted deep roles which i guess infuriated me in some way made me angry ceiling john elliott's determination to write a book so yeah it was something that i wanted i wanted to be told and that there are lives affected by these these types of things and people should maybe know that i had thought about writing the book for a number of years actually the more you talk about it the more you in my case write about it sort of the easier it becomes easier because john has suffered from ptsd which he traces in large part back to this case it hit home a lot harder than other homicide investigations had and i've certainly worked more than one or two penny has completed just over half of her 20-year prison sentence she avoided a longer life sentence by pleading guilty and she can apply for early parole after 15 years under a faint hope clause in the criminal code typically a bid would have been launched by now the parole board says it's prevented by the privacy act from disclosing if there's been an application but she is gradually gaining more freedom receiving escorted day passes to attend church several times a year a psychological assessment in 2017 rated her as a very low risk to reoffend but the assessment said her romantic relationships should be monitored to ensure her risk remains low it noted attachment disruptions in early childhood appear to have made you vulnerable to engaging in unhealthy relationships and reacting with extreme distress when they are in jeopardy of ending penny declined our request for an interview paul says he understands how the system works as part of an inmate's rehabilitation but he says he will oppose her freedom at every turn ever since this happened she's never faced any of us i want her to look me in the eye and tell me that she's rehabilitated and she should be she should be back out back out and and starting the life over again explain to me why you think that is and if she can give me a good reason then you know what i i i she's done her time whatever then you know if she can give me one good reason why she thinks why she thinks that she should be into public and functioning again you know what i won't argue but i guarantee that's not gonna happen do you feel like there's been justice for carissa i don't know if there ever be justice for you know uh i hope i hope to this day the horrors of that's still in her mind every time every night which she closes her eyes is there any prospect or any situation uh that you can foresee where you would forgive penny not a chance not a chance there you go that a girl just go easy logan paul is rebuilding his life with a new wife kim her 10 year old son logan and another daughter four-year-old carmy come here wanna be honest okay that's enough that's enough enough wanna go feed the fish yeah okay and i try to program my brain to leave the negative stuff where it should be just locked away [Music] paul is determined not to let what happened to carissa ruin the rest of his life we'll never forget her nobody will ever forget her i'm not saying that people of bridgewater and that shouldn't forget her and that stuff i mean that's great that they got you monument and that stuff down there but for myself and the family bringing back that horror doesn't help doesn't help anything for years he could not visit the town of bridgewater there was the longest time i had so much anxiety that i couldn't even pull in the exit i mean i'm okay now but it took me a long time to reprogram my brain to not get that anxiety over over going there right paul says this will be the only time he shares his emotional ordeal publicly i agreed to do to do this one and only you know interview with you guys but that's it you know what i mean he's doing it he says for his mother suzanne greer who died recently and never got over her granddaughter's murder and to honor carissa's memory i want to remember my happy-go-lucky girl not what happened to her can you find [ __ ] in this picture right there yeah she was four four four i think yep four years old like me yeah like you every time my little one her little sister that she has now does something you know sometimes she reminds me of you know yeah chris used to look that way or she used to you know there's different things like that i like this one the best you like that one the best yeah there's good messy here like you yeah they're very nice aren't they where's [ __ ] at now she's where she up with the angels yeah and she put the angels is she she up with john john and nanny yeah is that where she is yeah chris has been in my life every day she's never left yep that's my girl gone but not forgotten for those who knew and loved carissa for those who never got the chance and for all those touched by her case [Music] i'm anthony robart thank you for joining us tonight on crimebeat [Music] want more episodes of crimebeat listen to my crimebeat podcast now for free on apple podcasts spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts [Music] you

Channel: Crime Beat TV

Views: 358,559

Rating: 4.7630019 out of 5

Keywords: Global TV, Global News, crime beat, crime beat tv, crime beat global news, crime, crime investigation, nancy hixt crime beat, crime beat podcast, Karissa Boudreau, Ross Lord, Karissa Boudreau case, Karissa Boudreau up with the angels, up with the angels, Penny Boudreau

Id: rMqZ7FggSso

Length: 45min 10sec (2710 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 14 2020