The Ontario resident was permitted to remain on bail pending sentencing, set to take place in the coming months.
The woman, who was 78 when she took the stand this spring, was raped in the parking garage of the Lancaster Terrace apartments on Sept. 18, 1981.
Her voice heavy with emotion, she described a man grabbing her by the arm, tearing her dress and ordering her to take off her clothes. The man threatened to kill her and claimed he had a knife. He then forced her onto the ground and raped her, breaking her pinky finger in the process. Afterwards, he took her purse and fled the scene.
The case went cold until a 2018 review by the Edmonton Police Service historical crimes section, which realized cuttings taken from the woman’s dress were still in evidence storage. The cuttings tested positive for semen in 1981, but as Belzil noted, DNA profiling did not exist at the time.
Following the 2018 review, technicians at the Edmonton RCMP lab were able to develop a DNA profile, which was matched to a sample provided by Beausoleil. Belzil accepted expert evidence that the chance of a false match was 1 in 21 quintillion.
Leave a Reply