Nunavut court: Cape Dorset man guilty in 2009 Iqaluit rape-murder

Jeffrey Salomonie, 49, now faces life in prison with no chance of parole until after he serves 25 years. (FILE PHOTO)

Jeffery Salomonie, 49, is guilty of first-degree murder for brutally sexually assaulting and killing Daisy Curley, 33, in May 2009, Justice Neil Sharkey ruled April 5 at the Nunavut Court of Justice.

Member of Curley’s family wept when Sharkey read the verdict.

But Salomonie did not attend the courtroom, opting instead to stay in a cell elsewhere in the building.

“The accused is not present but is aware of his entitlement to be present, and the fact he is not present is not indicative of disrespect to the court… but we are ready to proceed,” said Salomonie’s lawyer, James Morton.

Daisy Curley’s brothers found her beaten and half-naked body in the living room of her family home in the Happy Valley neighbourhood of Iqaluit on May 24, 2009, nearly five days after she was last seen at the Storehouse Bar, drinking with Salomonie.

According to a statement Salomonie gave to police after his arrest in 2011, he met Curley at the Storehouse Bar on the evening of May 19, 2009 while in Iqaluit for a medical appointment.

After the bar closed, the pair went to Salomonie’s hotel room to continue drinking from a bottle of vodka he had acquired before taking a taxi to Curley’s home.

They continued drinking at Curley’s residence into the early morning. Salomonie told police he remembered waking up drunk beside Curley’s battered body.

Before returning to his hotel and catching a flight back to Cape Dorset later that day, he cleaned up some bloody footprints he had made.

Crown lawyers rejected a plea of manslaughter that Salomonie entered on the first day of his trial, this past Feb. 1, electing to pursue a charge of first-degree murder.

During his testimony at the trial Feb. 2, Salomonie maintained he had no memory of attacking Curley, or of having sexual intercourse with her.

“Frankly, I find Jeffrey’s testimony that he does not recall assaulting Daisy to be problematic. And I do not accept it as true,” Sharkey said in his decision.

Sharkey said that, based on forensic evidence, the severity of the wounds inflicted on Curley could only be viewed as an attack that could have knowingly resulted in her death.

Curley died from blood loss after sustaining approximately 20 blunt force lacerations to her head and face, according to forensic reports.

“I find that when Jeffrey repeatedly struck Daisy in the manner he did, he knew he was inflicting bodily harm which was likely to cause death and he was reckless whether death ensued or not,” Sharkey said.

Many of Curley’s injuries came from a hockey stick that was found broken into three pieces and recovered by police at the scene.

Salomonie maintained he had no memory of attacking Curley because of his extreme state of inebriation.

“He was not so drunk that he did not know what he was doing. I reject that notion outright. It just does not make common sense, and the law and common sense are not strangers,” he continued.

Salomonie’s DNA was recovered from Curley’s body during the autopsy, confirming he engaged in sexual intercourse with her.

Crown lawyers argued during the trial that sexual assault is one of several “constructive” offenses that can legally justify a first-degree murder conviction.

That means that any murder committed at the same time as a sexual assault is automatically a first degree murder.

But Salomonie’s testimony on the issue was confusing: he admitted during his 2011 RCMP interrogation to having sex with Curley in a drunken haze after he woke up, but denied saying that at his trial, saying he had no memory of being interrogated.

Salomonie’s legal counsel argued the sex could have been consensual and before the attack, and there wasn’t enough evidence to definitively place sex within the timeline of the attack.

Sharkey said in his sentence that forensic evidence gathered at the scene proved Curley was wearing her clothes during the attack, and blood stains on her pants and underwear show they were removed after she lost consciousness.

If Salomonie had sex with Curley after the attack — as physical evidence and his own earlier testimony indicate — Sharkey said the act could only be viewed as a sexual assault.

“[Curley’s] jeans and underwear were pulled down by an assailant with bloody hands. And that assailant…could only be Jeffrey Salomonie,” Sharkey said.

Sharkey ended his remarks by citing a crime scene photo of Curley’s half-naked body as police discovered it on May 25, 2009.

“This crime scene photograph is both haunting and telling, and the message it conveys is clear and stark,” he said.

“Any reasonable person who looks at this photo can come to only one conclusion…namely, ‘this women has been beaten and sexually assaulted.’”

Salomonie’s first degree murder charge comes with a mandatory life sentence, which carries an automatic 25-year period of parole ineligibility.

Lawyers will appear April 6 at Nunavut’s Court of Justice to give submissions to Sharkey before Salomonie’s sentence is delivered.

R. v. Salomonie, verdict judgment by NunatsiaqNews