Christopher Oliveira sentenced to 13 years for killing an owner in Laval

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A man who killed his 71-year-old landlord in Laval three years ago told the victim’s family that he is not a monster before he was sentenced Tuesday to a 13-year prison term and declared a long-term criminal. .

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“If there was anything else I could have done, I would have done it,” Christopher Oliveira, 35, told Nicole Chouinard’s family as they sat in a courtroom at the Laval courthouse. “A mental health problem is difficult to control. When you get older, it turns into impulsive reactions. I don’t want to look like a monster in front of the news all the time. I also have a family.

“I know you will never forgive me for what I did, but I am sorry. I am not who people think I am. If I could change the past, I would. I’m am so sorry about what happened. That’s all I wanted to tell you. You see me here today and I can talk. I’m not going to sit here and let people think I don’t have a heart. I make. It’s just that I have an illness and I want to help myself and move on with my life. “

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Oliveira made the comments after High Court Judge Lyne Décarie asked if he had anything to say before she accepted a joint recommendation that he be sentenced to a general prison term of 13.5 years and declared a long-term criminal. for a period of time. six year period.

Attorneys for both sides of the case referred to mental health evaluations that describe Oliveira as impulsive, someone who cannot control his emotions and is still at high risk of recidivism.

With the long-term offender designation, the Canadian Parole Board can impose a number of conditions of surveillance on Oliveira when his sentence expires. With the time served included in his sentence, he was left with a prison term of more than nine years as of Tuesday.

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Décarie noted that involuntary manslaughter is the only crime in the Penal Code in which sentences can range from no jail time to life in prison and that a 13-year prison term is within the highest range of previous convictions. for involuntary manslaughter.

“He is in good shape. It does not go against the interests of society or the interests of justice, ”said the judge.

Although he was originally charged with second-degree murder after his arrest in 2018, Oliveira pleaded guilty, on November 9, to a reduced count of involuntary manslaughter. At the time he killed Chouinard, he was on probation from a 14-month sentence he received in 2017 for assault.

According to a joint statement of facts in the court file when he pleaded guilty, he began renting a room to Chouinard at his home in Laval-des-Rapides a month before killing her on June 22, 2018.

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Just before killing her, Oliveira called his boss and claimed that Chouinard had stolen money from him while he was showering.

His boss advised him to call the police, but Chouinard heard what Oliveira said and confronted him. As they argued, Oliveira hit the woman in the throat, her head hit a wall and she fell to the ground before dying. While addressing the victim’s family on Tuesday, Oliveira also claimed that Chouinard had a gambling problem.

He wrapped Chouinard’s body in four blankets and hid it behind a shed in his backyard. The next morning, he showed up at work and told his boss that he had killed Chouinard.

Oliveira’s boss advised Oliveira to turn himself in to the police, but he refused and left. Hours later, Oliveira called his boss and asked him not to call the police. At some point later that day, Oliveira’s boss’s son called 911 to report what his father knew.

When Laval police arrived at Chouinard’s home, they found his body behind the shed in his backyard.

Five days later, police found Oliveira hiding in an unoccupied chalet in Ste-Marcelline-de Kildare, a town in the Lanaudière region 90 kilometers north of Montreal.

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