Trial told of death threat over trip to Italy
SUE MONTGOMERY
The Gazette
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Kelly-Anne Drummond travelled to Italy despite her boyfriend's threats to kill her if she took the trip, a close friend of the popular athlete and lifeguard told a murder trial yesterday.
"She told me he said he'd beat the living s--t out of her if she went," Philippe Major said in Quebec Superior Court of the conversations he had with Drummond, 24, at the end of September 2004, when the two were attending a lifesaving competition in Italy.
Four days after returning to Canada from that trip, Drummond was found in a pool of blood in the kitchen of the Pierrefonds apartment she shared with Martin Morin-Cousineau, 31. He is being tried for second-degree murder.
"She said he'd put a knife on the table beside her," Major recalled of their conversations in Italy. "When she asked, 'What are you going to do with that?' he said, 'If you ever piss me off again, I'll kill you.' "
Drummond told Major she had just signed a one-year lease on the apartment in August 2004 and was afraid she'd have to pay a full year's rent if she left Morin-Cousineau. She also said she'd lent him about $4,000.
Major helped Drummond come up with a "plan of attack" to leave her boyfriend, but she was afraid of aggravating the situation and making Morin-Cousineau even angrier.
Defence lawyer Sasha Blais asked Major why he didn't mention the death threats in emails he sent to police investigators after Drummond's fatal stabbing.
"In my head there was no reason to write word for word what she'd said to me," Major said.
"Yes, I omitted a lot, but she was dead. Why go into details?
"I'd never done a statement like that before."
It wasn't until a year later, in September 2005, when Major returned to Canada, that he sent an email to investigators telling them about the detailed threats.
But for some reason, police didn't receive the message. Major re-sent the email in November.
Drummond's father, John Drummond, is to testify today.
smontgomery@thegazette.canwest.com
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