N.S. killer’s wife has charge dismissed

P O R T H AW K E S B U R Y, N . S . • A judge has dismissed the one criminal charge against the owner of a Cape Breton fishing boat at the centre of a string of court proceedings arising from what a lawyer has described as a case of “murder for lobster.”

Carla Samson of D’Escousse, N.S., was charged with being an accessory after the fact over the disappearance of Phillip Boudreau on June 1, 2013.

She was not on the fishing boat that day when it rammed Boudreau’s much smaller speedboat, tossing him into the water off southern Cape Breton. However, as the owner of the Twin Maggies and the wife of its captain, she was implicated in the crime.

Her trial was just getting started Monday in Nova Scoti a Supreme Court in Port Hawkesbury when Crown attorney Steve Drake told Justice Simon MacDonald there was no realistic prospect for a conviction.

Her lawyer, Nash Brogan, immediately asked MacDonald to dismiss the case and the judge agreed.

Outside the courtroom, Bro- gan said he wasn’t surprised by the collapse of the case.

“From Day 1 we’ve been saying that it was a crime that she was charged,” he said, suggesting the evidence against Samson was minimal.

“It was nothing more than anybody would say in a family situation when the police are coming. A mother would say to her children ... ‘Everybody better have the same story.’ ’’

Drake said the Crown couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt Samson had “full awareness” of what had happened to Boudreau.

She was one of four people charged.

Her father, Joseph James Landry of Little Anse, N.S., was handed a 14-year prison sentence in January after being found guilty of manslaughter. He was originally charged with second-degree murder. He has filed an appeal of the sentence.

The boat’s captain, Carla Samson’s husband, Dwayne, pleaded guilty last month to manslaughter, having admitted he was steering the vessel when it hit Boudreau’s boat. He will be sentenced in August.

Deckhand Craig Landry, who is Joseph James Landry’s third cousin, was previously charged with second-degree murder but that charge was withdrawn. He now faces a charge of accessory after the fact.

Anybody would say … ‘Everybody better have the

same story’

The federal government has defended the move to limit Driver’s activities. Shortly after he was arrested earlier this month, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said the government must combat terrorism.

“We will continue to ensure that our police forces have the tools they need to protect Canadians against this evolving threat of terrorism,” Blaney’s press secretary, Jeremy Laurin, wrote in an email.

Driver spent a week in custody before being released on bail. His next court date is July 9.