The grandparents of five-year-old Jeffrey Baldwin were convicted of second-degree murder in the boy's starvation death yesterday, capping a searing chronicle of abuse, neglect and misery that stirred questions about the role of the Catholic Children's Aid Society.
The pair, who did not testify in their defence, were also convicted of unlawfully confining Jeffrey's sister, who was 7 when he died and spent much of her time locked up with him in a dirty, unheated bedroom in their grandparents' Toronto public-housing home.
Elva Bottineau, 54, and Norman Kidman, 53, had pleaded not guilty to murder in the death of Jeffrey, who was two months shy of his sixth birthday when he died in November of 2002.
Second-degree murder carries an automatic penalty of life imprisonment without possibility of parole for at least 10 years. A date for sentencing will be set on Wednesday.
Neither accused displayed emotion at the verdicts. Ms. Bottineau, a small, scruffy figure with shaggy grey hair, stayed slumped in her chair. Mr. Kidman stared at the floor of the prisoner's box.
Police and prosecutors had hoped to secure first-degree murder convictions, which brings a life sentence with scant hope of parole for at least 25 years, but Mr. Justice David Watt of the Superior Court said the evidence didn't support the more serious charge.
Crown attorney Paul Culver, Toronto's chief prosecutor, was nonetheless content with the outcome. "We're obviously pleased that both were convicted, it was a good result, and that Justice Watt, as usual, gave lengthy, elaborate reasons."
Jeffrey's paternal grandmother, Susan Dimitriadis, said she was "relieved that they got second-degree murder. I imagined they were going to get manslaughter, I was afraid they'd get away with it. They needed to be convicted of this. My grandson is now dead and I miss him."
Defence lawyer Nick Xynnis, Ms. Bottineau's co-counsel, said he and colleague Anil Kapoor were considering the possibility of an appeal and were "gratified she wasn't convicted of first-degree murder."
The core of the defence was that Jeffrey's death involved not murder but extreme neglect at the hands of a woman with a severely diminished mental capacity, and that neither accused intended for him to die.
Mr. Kidman, represented by Bob Richardson, had acknowledged being guilty of manslaughter, which implies unintended homicide.
But lead prosecutor Bev Richards disagreed. Judge Watt concurred yesterday, saying the two accused held equal responsibility for Jeffrey's death, which he said was chiefly the consequence of "prolonged starvation" that lasted for years.
Jeffrey and his three siblings had lived with Ms. Bottineau and Mr. Kidman since 1998 after a court order removed them from their mother after suspicions of abuse.
When Jeffrey died, his emaciated body covered with sores and bruises, he stood just 36 inches tall and weighed less than 21 pounds - less than half the normal weight of a child his age.
Within half an hour of shocked paramedics' arrival at the grandparents' home, where they found him on a towel on the kitchen counter, he was taken to the Hospital for Sick Children and pronounced dead.
He died of septic shock, triggered by severe malnutrition and bacterial pneumonia caused by sleeping in his own waste.
Along with wrenching descriptions of the last months of Jeffrey's life, the trial raised questions about the CCAS, which had been involved with Jeffrey's family since 1969 and approved the placement of him and the other children with Ms. Bottineau and Mr. Kidman.
Both grandparents were convicted child abusers - Ms. Bottineau for assault causing bodily harm in the 1970 pneumonia death of her first baby, Eva. The society had records of the abuse, but those records were never checked.
Yesterday's verdicts coincide with two proposed changes in child-protection procedures.
The Ontario Coroner's Office plans to begin disclosing the details of all suspicious child deaths in the province (roughly 20 a year).
As well, in legislation that passed first reading Wednesday, MPP Andrea Horwath called for Ontario's Ombudsman to be granted the power to investigate complaints involving the province's 53 children's aid societies.
While the CCAS had no immediate comment, Jeanette Lewis, executive director of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies, said the "devastating" case illustrates the need for families, neighbours and the public to be aware of potentially abusive situations.
"The system does work very well for most children," she said. "But children's aid societies are not in a caregiver's home 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
With a report from Oliver Moore