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BRAMPTON — The dust has long since settled on Duchess Avenue and three new homes have risen from the wreckage, symbols of sanity's gradual return, of life moving on.
The same cannot be said for John Walkiewicz, the troubled man who, in a fit of spite against his ex-wife, opened a gas pipe in his basement and blew a hole in his quiet Mississauga neighbourhood.
The morning explosion on Aug. 28, 2006 – just hours before their erstwhile matrimonial home was to be turned over to new owners – obliterated the sixties-vintage house, damaged the adjacent two beyond repair and seriously injured a man walking by, along with Mr. Walkiewicz, whom neighbours helped pull from the smoking rubble.
Yesterday, before a judge sentenced him to six years in prison, the 55-year-old former locksmith treated his former neighbours to a fresh blast of denial, directing blame at the gas company and his former lawyer but none at himself, despite what a jury had found in July: that he was guilty of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and arson endangering life.
In a rambling address before Madam Justice Silja Seppi in a Brampton courtroom, the tall, broad-shouldered Mr. Walkiewicz, his straggly grey hair tied in a short ponytail, also bemoaned his “traumatic” trial and the indignities of life in the Maplehurst Correctional Complex near Milton, where he spent the past 25 months awaiting yesterday's outcome.
“The incarceration time, it's very cruel,” said Mr. Walkiewicz, who has been in a segregation cell since last May.
He was initially placed in what is commonly called “the hole” for three weeks after allegedly assaulting a guard, then kept there for his own protection from fellow inmates due to the colostomy bag he has worn since a 1986 cancer surgery.
“Mr. Walkiewicz has served very hard time,” lawyer David Harris, whom Mr. Walkiewicz recently retained after firing his trial lawyer, told the court before his client stood up to speak and, at times, contradict him.
“There are olfactory effects from [the colostomy bag] which on the range can lead to ridicule from other inmates,” Mr. Harris said.
He argued that this, along with Mr. Walkiewicz's lack of a prior record, turbulent childhood, health problems and history of emotional distress, including suicidal intent when he ignited the blast, qualified him for release from jail now, for time already served.
Courts typically count such time at a 2-to-1 rate, which meant 50 months in this case, though Mr. Harris asked the judge for an “enhanced credit” of 60 months due to those factors.
Assistant Crown attorney John Kingdon argued otherwise and called for a seven- to eight-year term, minus the 50 months, citing the injuries, damage, emotional trauma and risk to emergency workers wrought by Mr. Walkiewicz's actions.
“And all for what?” Mr. Kingdon asked, before answering his own question. “For spite, for revenge” against his ex-wife, who stood to share in the proceeds of the home's sale, which had been ordered by a family court judge over Mr. Walkiewicz's protests.
The strongest, if unintentional, argument for continued incarceration likely came from Mr. Walkiewicz, who remained unrepentant to the end.
Despite the jury's acceptance of a raft of compelling evidence – from the pipe wrench found next to Mr. Walkiewicz's unscrewed gas line, to accounts of how he was pulled from beneath the debris pile at the epicentre of the explosion – he maintained his innocence yesterday.
“I was sitting on a bench having a coffee in my backyard [when the house exploded],” the convicted arsonist told the judge. “I even went to McDonald's [that morning] because my stove wasn't working. Forensics found no gas on my clothes.”
Despite his own lawyer's submission to the contrary moments earlier, Mr. Walkiewicz also brushed off the notion he was suicidal that day, and blamed the news media for suggesting he was. (News outlets reported that investigators had found a suicide note in the days after the blast; the judge refused to allow the note into evidence since its age could not be determined.)
“What I really wanted was just a fair trial,” Mr. Walkiewicz said, “just to be heard.”
At that, Judge Seppi decided she had heard enough, and retired for several hours before she returned with her sentence.
With the 50-month deduction factored in, her six-year sentence amounts to another 22 months for Mr. Walkiewicz, which spares him a trip to federal penitentiary. He will be eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of that.
“He didn't get what we would like him to get, obviously,” said Grace Garland, a long-time neighbour whose house next door was destroyed and has since been rebuilt. “But he got what was expected, and we're reasonably happy.”
