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Husband charged with slaying wife
SIDHARTHA BANERJEE The Gazette
Friday, May 30, 2003 A man who drove his wife's body to Lakeshore General Hospital in November, claiming she had hanged herself, is to be charged today with first-degree murder. Tanya Buschman, 35, was pronounced dead by doctors at the West Island hospital's emergency room on Nov. 20. Michel Bérubé, 37, was arrested without incident about 10 a.m. yesterday by Montreal police homicide investigators in a car on Côte des Neiges Rd. An arrest warrant had been issued just hours earlier. Autopsy results indicated Buschman did not commit suicide, but died violently. She was probably beaten to death, said commander André Bouchard, head of the Montreal police force's homicide squad. "She had internal injuries, too, which doesn't fit in with people hanging themselves," Bouchard said. Investigators were leery of Bérubé's story and the number of inconsistencies in it. A thorough search of the crime scene and numerous crime lab tests revealed a wealth of evidence, Bouchard said. Neighbours described Buschman as a friendly, likable and easygoing woman who spent most days cutting and styling hair in her basement salon. The Cypihot St. home in St. Anne de Bellevue they had shared for almost seven years was sold in December and Bérubé moved to Calgary. Investigators speculate the couple had ended their relationship and Buschman had no intention of going to Calgary with Bérubé. Bouchard acknowledged the investigation took six months, but police were not willing to make mistakes. "We get one shot at it," he said. "You don't want to lose a case because someone dragged his feet." Buschman's death was the 41st of the 47 homicides recorded on Montreal police territory in 2002. |
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Berube convicted of murdering wife
ALLISON HANES The Gazette March 5, 2005
Life sentence, no parole for 25 years; Jury rejects husband's explanation, decides Tanya Buschman didn't hang herself
From the moment Tanya Buschman's husband carried her battered body into a hospital emergency room, a blue clothesline tightly tied around her neck, her family and friends were convinced she'd been murdered. Yesterday, so was a jury. Eight men and four women found Michel Berube guilty of first degree murder - putting to rest suggestions that the 35-yearold Ste. Anne de Bellevue hairdresser had committed suicide. Berube, 38, showed no emotion as he was sentenced on the spot to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. He shrugged in the direction of his aunt, brother and a close family friend before being handcuffed and led away, ending the freedom he was accorded when granted bail after his arrest. Defence lawyer Eric Downs emerged from the court to say Berube still denies his guilt and intends to appeal his conviction. Buschman's family, who travelled from Calgary and Vancouver for Berube's four-week trial, sat in a row, clasping hands as the jury filed into the courtroom. They broke down in tears and embraced after the verdict was pronounced, relieved to have been given confirmation of what they've always believed. "We feel very elated that this nightmare is over," said the victim's mother, Nell Buschman, with her son Ron and daughter Leona - Tanya Buschman's older siblings - at her side. "Tanya's love and legacy will burn in our hearts forever," Nell Buschman said. "Tanya always told everyone to keep smiling, because the world will smile back at you."
Deliberating since lunchtime Tuesday, the jury rejected Berube's tearful testimony that he fought with his wife over her poor body image, then arrived at their Ste. Anne de Bellevue home after work on Nov. 20, 2002, to find her hanged in the stairwell. Three of Buschman's close friends, her mother and a new love interest all testified she planned to end her marriage and had told Berube so. Crown prosecutor Pierre Poulin said although the circumstantial evidence indicated Berube killed his wife, the work of forensic pathologist Michelle Houde clinched the case. She labelled the death "murder by hanging." The jury took Houde's word over the competing claims of a defence expert, who insisted Buschman was not beaten and her death simply a suicide. "The truth was told today," Poulin said. "I hope this will help (the Buschman family) to find closure and move on."
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Portrait of accused killer as homebody Friends, family just can't see Berube as a murderer
On a plane ride home from Monaco, where he'd escorted a tour group to watch a Grand Prix motor race, Michel Berube told a close family friend that all he wanted out of life was a home, a wife and children. With tears in her eyes, Marie Fafard yesterday recalled being amazed at the time by the young man's simple, humble desires. "Here was this kid who'd never been on a plane before and who was coming back from a beautiful trip, where he'd been sitting in a paddock looking at Prince Rainier, and he says, 'I want to go back to the West Island and get my little house and find myself a wife,' " she said. A jury today enters a fourth day of deliberating on Berube's fate. The 38-year-old is charged with first-degree murder in the Nov. 20, 2002, death of his wife, Tanya Buschman. At Berube's Superior Court trial, the Crown attempted to prove he killed Buschman in cold blood because she intended to leave him, then tried to disguise her death as a suicide by hanging at their Ste. Anne de Bellevue home. The defence argued that Buschman took her own life. As impossible as it is for Buschman's family and friends to believe the vibrant 35-year-old hairdresser killed herself, Berube's loved ones find it equally impossible to believe the hard-working waiter killed his wife. Fafard spoke out yesterday about the agony Berube's family is going through. She first met Berube in 1987, shortly after his parents died, when he was a 19-year-old working as a waiter at the Mirabel Racquet Club. "I got really attached to him. He was such a respectful young man for what had happened," said Fafard, who considers herself like an aunt to Berube. "I thought: 'My gosh. I wish I had a son like him.' " She soon invited him to work for her corporate tour company, leading trips to Europe. He never bragged to his admiring friends about attending races in Switzerland or living it up in Monaco, she said. Two years later, he told her thanks, but he'd be happier staying home and making a home. He earned enough money for a down payment on his first house at age 22. Fafard said the bank manager couldn't believe a good-looking young man would rather have a mortgage in Dollard des Ormeaux than a sports car. Berube was close to his family. He and his brother were taken under the wing of their aunt after their mother died of cancer and his father committed suicide six weeks later. The brothers looked after their aging grandparents, who were heartbroken by the loss. Berube coached hockey. A diabetic, he also volunteered at the Montreal Children's Hospital, helping kids with the same illness get over the fear of their insulin injections. "He was the kind of person who, if he saw you with a flat tire, would stop to help you," "For us, it's simply impossible. He's not even capable of doing something like this. "This is a tragedy for all of us." |
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Family felt driven to honour sister's legacy 'I knew it was not suicide, but I have to say I didn't like the alternative, either'
Saturday, March 05, 2005
"Surreal" is the only word Leona can think of to describe the last two years of her family's lives - and especially the last four weeks. On Nov. 20, 2002, her brother Ron and his wife, Teresa, showed up unexpectedly at Leona’s home about 9 p.m. Teresa took Leona’s daughter to her bedroom, while Ron struggled to find the words to relay devastating news. "I thought it was our mother," Leona confessed in an interview yesterday. But it was their baby sister. Not only was 35-year-old Tanya Buschman dead, her brother told her, there were suspicions she had been killed by her husband even though she appeared to have died by hanging. "I have to confess I had a very hard time. I knew it was not suicide but I have to say I didn't like the alternative, either," Leona said. "It's surreal that someone who had been in our home and whose home you had been in could have done something like this." After a four-week jury trial, their sister's husband, Michel Berube, 38, was found guilty yesterday of first-degree murder. Leona, her brother Ron and their mother, Nell, left their families in western Canada to attend the trial in Montreal. They were at the courtroom each day with relatives and Tanya Buschman's friends. "We got confirmation of what we always knew in our hearts," Ron said. "It gives me peace." For a family forced to relive a terrible tragedy, the Buschmans were models of grace and dignity - smiling through the tears and expressing compassion and forgiveness toward Berube and his relatives. Nell Buschman said at the courthouse after the verdict was delivered that her daughter's spirit inspired them to put on a brave face. Ron said their faith - also helped. "I don't know how families could go through this without faith," he said. But the driving force behind their calm was the need to honour his sister's legacy. In the days following the death of his sister, Ron said he and Leona vowed to do everything in their power to clear the lingering doubts surrounding her demise and to see that justice was served. "We've reached that goal," he said yesterday. "We've fulfilled our promise to our sister." "We think we did our sister proud," Leona added. |
