Lenny Lavallee has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of 30-year-old Nicole Cooney in Edmonton’s Inglewood neighbourhood.
The Court of Queen’s Bench decision was handed down Thursday in Edmonton.
Lavallee, 34, was present in court for the decision. The stocky man wore an orange jumpsuit and was expressionless throughout the proceedings.
Cooney’s family was in court. Her mother trembled and wiped away tears as Justice E.J Simpson delivered his decision.
Simpson said the Crown established beyond a reasonable doubt that Lavallee shot Cooney on April 17 in 2016.
Lavallee statement ‘unbelievable’
He said that a statement Lavallee gave to an Edmonton police detective following the shooting was not believable.
“The evidence in the statement is internally inconsistent, contradictory and in the context of the other evidence, unbelievable,” Simpson said in his written statement, adding “I do not believe his repeated denial that he shot Nicole Cooney.”
But Simpson said he did believe testimony provided by others who testified.
During the trial in early March, Lavallee’s ex-girlfriend Theresa Butler testified that Lavallee threatened to kill her in the days leading up to the shooting.
Butler told court she and Cooney were walking home from a convenience store in north Edmonton when she saw Lavallee.
She started running and heard a gunshot, she said. When she looked back, she saw her friend slumped on the ground, she testified.
Butler said she saw Lavallee and his brother ride off on bikes down an alley before she tried to help her friend.
“All I could see was blood coming out of her nose, blood coming out of her eyes, and blood out of her ears,” said Butler.
After Butler propped her friend up against a tree and screamed for help, she ran to a nearby apartment building in the Inglewood neighbourhood, where a woman told her she had already called 911.
Someone living in the building came out and helped perform CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. After EMS showed up, Cooney was pronounced dead at the scene.
‘I shot the wrong one.’
A woman who tried to help the victim testified she overheard a man at the scene say he had shot the wrong person.
“He came up to the front of the house, he was just looking,” Shanlai Cook said. “He just said, ‘I shot the wrong one.’ “
Marc Warnell testified he was getting ready for bed on April 17, 2016 when he noticed flashlights in his backyard and four or five police officers.
Then he saw a man he recognized inside his home. The man was Terry Lavallee, who sometimes dated a woman who lived in the basement suite downstairs from Warnell’s rented suite.
Warnell testified he confronted Lavallee’s brother about the police outside his home. But the man said the police activity had nothing to do with him.
The police then came to Warnell’s door and asked him about two BMX bikes they had found lying near the back of his yard. Warnell told the officers he didn’t know who owned the bikes.
He then went down into the basement suite and found a nervous-looking Lenny Lavallee sitting in a bedroom with his brother, he told court.
Standoff lasted about 4 hours
Both men told him to “lock the door” and not to talk to the police again, Warnell testified.
He went back upstairs. When he eventually opened the door again, he was taken to a nearby car by police.
Police got Lavallee’s brother to come out of the suite too, leaving Lenny Lavallee alone in the house.
A police tactical team was brought in to get him out. The ensuing standoff lasted for about four hours.
A sentencing date has not yet been determined.