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Guest
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TORONTO -- It was Friday, Nov. 29, 2002. It was the last night of Jeffrey Baldwin's life.
By the numbers, he was not-quite six years old; he weighed 21 pounds; he was 37 inches tall. He was starved, he was covered in his own feces, he had pneumonia in his lungs, and he was in the throes, or soon to be in the throes, of the septic shock that would kill him.
He was dying in the stinking, barren, unheated bedroom to which he and a sister were routinely confined and which is known here, at the murder trial of his grandparents, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman, as Bedroom No. 2.
In a room just down the hall, James Mills, then 21 years old, was at the Sony PlayStation 2 in Bedroom No. 1.
If Jeffrey ever had a prayer of emerging from that small house alive, if he ever had even a breath of a hint of a hope, it would have rested with Mr. Mills.
Mr. Mills was the outsider in that frightening house, the only one of the six adults then living there who was not related by blood or marriage or bound by the intimate knots of monstrous dysfunction. In November of 2002, he had been involved with Yvette, the youngest daughter of Ms. Bottineau and Mr. Kidman, only about seven months. He had another place -- his mother's -- where he could also live, and indeed sometimes still stayed. He had his own source of money, having just obtained social assistance.
He was a free man.
Mr. Mills was free to do nothing, and nothing is what he did.
He heard Jeffrey coughing. He listened to the sounds of "a little wheeze, a weeping, sobbing" coming from Jeffrey's room. He was aware when, between 2:00 and 2:30 in the morning, the noises stopped and the room went, as he said yesterday without a trace of irony, "dead quiet."
Mr. Mills stayed at the PlayStation.
He remembers, he said yesterday, even as he was describing the sounds of the small boy in the room down the hall, that he couldn't sleep because he, James Mills, had a sinus infection.
He knew very well how ill the little boy was.
Two days earlier, on the Wednesday, he'd seen Michael Reitemeier, the husband of Tammy Kidman, holding Jeffrey by the hand, helping him walk, sort of. Jeffrey's legs were by then so thin they were no wider, Mr. Mills said yesterday, than two fingers of his own hand, too weak to support the stress of his shrunken body, and his feet "seemed really red." Jeffrey was wearing a sweatshirt, and it was undone at the collar, and Mr. Mills glimpsed the little boy's rib cage.
The day before, on the Thursday, Mr. Mills had seen Jeffrey go up the stairs back to his foul room. "Due to the fact he was so tiny, and the stress on his legs," Mr. Mills said, "it was tough for him to go upstairs. He would crawl up the stairs, one step at a time." As he did, the sweatpants -- a size small, Mr. Mills said, but he floated in them -- would slide off his old man's bony bum, "slide off with each step."
Mr. Mills had some difficulties with his memory yesterday. While the outline of what he told Mr. Justice David Watt of Ontario Superior Court conforms to the lengthy videotaped statement he gave Toronto Police on the day Jeffrey died, before the Bottineau-Kidman clan realized Mr. Mills was a quisling and began to pressure him and woo him to come onside, some of the details escaped him. As he put it, with astonishing self-regard, "There is a lot I have been through the last few years."
But he remembered enough that it was plain from the day in July when he clamped eyes on Jeffrey for the first time -- the heretofore invisible wee boy suddenly appearing in the kitchen, sitting on the little rug where he always had to stay, and saying, "Hi James" -- and saw how thin he was, Mr. Mills knew something evil was Jeffrey's way coming.
He knew the boy and his sister were often locked in their vile room, the only one in the house that wasn't warm and comfortable. He saw Jeffrey being treated "fairly badly. . . like a dog" and that he lived in "over all bad conditions". He knew the boy had to eat standing up, out of a bowl, with his hands, and Mr. Mills had been around enough to know the family mantra on this: Jeffrey was "rebelling," and he and his sister couldn't be trusted with utensils.
He heard Ms. Bottineau yelling at him if he dared, when allowed downstairs, move from his little rug: "Get back to your spot!" He smelled the urine and feces that emanated from Jeffrey's room. He had, if not seen, heard Jeffrey drinking from the toilet.
He knew Ms. Bottineau's views on Jeffrey and his sister. On the rare occasion he would timidly suggest that perhaps, you know, she might take the boy to a hospital, "I got the impression she was a little fearful. . . . She would start talking very quickly and try to change the subject. She was afraid she would lose money off her assistance cheque, that if the authorities would be notified, if they saw him in that kind of condition . . . she would lose money off her cheque."
He knew, too, that it was only if Jeffrey didn't defecate or urinate in his room the night previous -- and how could he not, with the door locked from the outside? -- that he would be allowed downstairs to play with the four other kids in the house. And only, as Mr. Mills said, "if they allowed it. . . . They'd decide if Jeffrey could play with them."
It was by the Wednesday, Mr. Mills said, that as he told the police later, he thought Jeffrey was on "a death march." "What did you mean by that?" prosecutor Bev Richards asked. "It looked like he had given up. . . . It looked like he wanted to die."
On the last night, Mr. Mills was at the PlayStation when at about 12.30 a.m. his girlfriend Yvette came in to tell him that Jeffrey looked pretty weak. "What do you think is going to happen?" they asked one another. "What do you want me to do?" Yvette asked him. "I dunno," Mr. Mills replied. "It's up to you."
About an hour later, he said, Ms. Bottineau came in and announced she was going to bed. "Me and Yvette said she should take him to a hospital," Mr. Mills said. "She said 'No, no, no.' "
A half-hour to an hour later, Jeffrey's room fell silent.
Mr. Mills said that on the Thursday, he'd remarked to Yvette, "I don't think he is long for this world."
Why would he say that, the prosecutor asked.
"Some people," Mr. Mills explained, as though he were blessed with second sight or was perhaps a medium, "have those feelings that something bad is going to happen. And sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't."
Yes, some people can listen to the sounds of a child dying, and remember the night as the one when they had a sinus infection such that they couldn't sleep, and stayed at the PlayStation for hours and hours in a suddenly still house.
By the numbers, he was not-quite six years old; he weighed 21 pounds; he was 37 inches tall. He was starved, he was covered in his own feces, he had pneumonia in his lungs, and he was in the throes, or soon to be in the throes, of the septic shock that would kill him.
He was dying in the stinking, barren, unheated bedroom to which he and a sister were routinely confined and which is known here, at the murder trial of his grandparents, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman, as Bedroom No. 2.
In a room just down the hall, James Mills, then 21 years old, was at the Sony PlayStation 2 in Bedroom No. 1.
If Jeffrey ever had a prayer of emerging from that small house alive, if he ever had even a breath of a hint of a hope, it would have rested with Mr. Mills.
Mr. Mills was the outsider in that frightening house, the only one of the six adults then living there who was not related by blood or marriage or bound by the intimate knots of monstrous dysfunction. In November of 2002, he had been involved with Yvette, the youngest daughter of Ms. Bottineau and Mr. Kidman, only about seven months. He had another place -- his mother's -- where he could also live, and indeed sometimes still stayed. He had his own source of money, having just obtained social assistance.
He was a free man.
Mr. Mills was free to do nothing, and nothing is what he did.
He heard Jeffrey coughing. He listened to the sounds of "a little wheeze, a weeping, sobbing" coming from Jeffrey's room. He was aware when, between 2:00 and 2:30 in the morning, the noises stopped and the room went, as he said yesterday without a trace of irony, "dead quiet."
Mr. Mills stayed at the PlayStation.
He remembers, he said yesterday, even as he was describing the sounds of the small boy in the room down the hall, that he couldn't sleep because he, James Mills, had a sinus infection.
He knew very well how ill the little boy was.
Two days earlier, on the Wednesday, he'd seen Michael Reitemeier, the husband of Tammy Kidman, holding Jeffrey by the hand, helping him walk, sort of. Jeffrey's legs were by then so thin they were no wider, Mr. Mills said yesterday, than two fingers of his own hand, too weak to support the stress of his shrunken body, and his feet "seemed really red." Jeffrey was wearing a sweatshirt, and it was undone at the collar, and Mr. Mills glimpsed the little boy's rib cage.
The day before, on the Thursday, Mr. Mills had seen Jeffrey go up the stairs back to his foul room. "Due to the fact he was so tiny, and the stress on his legs," Mr. Mills said, "it was tough for him to go upstairs. He would crawl up the stairs, one step at a time." As he did, the sweatpants -- a size small, Mr. Mills said, but he floated in them -- would slide off his old man's bony bum, "slide off with each step."
Mr. Mills had some difficulties with his memory yesterday. While the outline of what he told Mr. Justice David Watt of Ontario Superior Court conforms to the lengthy videotaped statement he gave Toronto Police on the day Jeffrey died, before the Bottineau-Kidman clan realized Mr. Mills was a quisling and began to pressure him and woo him to come onside, some of the details escaped him. As he put it, with astonishing self-regard, "There is a lot I have been through the last few years."
But he remembered enough that it was plain from the day in July when he clamped eyes on Jeffrey for the first time -- the heretofore invisible wee boy suddenly appearing in the kitchen, sitting on the little rug where he always had to stay, and saying, "Hi James" -- and saw how thin he was, Mr. Mills knew something evil was Jeffrey's way coming.
He knew the boy and his sister were often locked in their vile room, the only one in the house that wasn't warm and comfortable. He saw Jeffrey being treated "fairly badly. . . like a dog" and that he lived in "over all bad conditions". He knew the boy had to eat standing up, out of a bowl, with his hands, and Mr. Mills had been around enough to know the family mantra on this: Jeffrey was "rebelling," and he and his sister couldn't be trusted with utensils.
He heard Ms. Bottineau yelling at him if he dared, when allowed downstairs, move from his little rug: "Get back to your spot!" He smelled the urine and feces that emanated from Jeffrey's room. He had, if not seen, heard Jeffrey drinking from the toilet.
He knew Ms. Bottineau's views on Jeffrey and his sister. On the rare occasion he would timidly suggest that perhaps, you know, she might take the boy to a hospital, "I got the impression she was a little fearful. . . . She would start talking very quickly and try to change the subject. She was afraid she would lose money off her assistance cheque, that if the authorities would be notified, if they saw him in that kind of condition . . . she would lose money off her cheque."
He knew, too, that it was only if Jeffrey didn't defecate or urinate in his room the night previous -- and how could he not, with the door locked from the outside? -- that he would be allowed downstairs to play with the four other kids in the house. And only, as Mr. Mills said, "if they allowed it. . . . They'd decide if Jeffrey could play with them."
It was by the Wednesday, Mr. Mills said, that as he told the police later, he thought Jeffrey was on "a death march." "What did you mean by that?" prosecutor Bev Richards asked. "It looked like he had given up. . . . It looked like he wanted to die."
On the last night, Mr. Mills was at the PlayStation when at about 12.30 a.m. his girlfriend Yvette came in to tell him that Jeffrey looked pretty weak. "What do you think is going to happen?" they asked one another. "What do you want me to do?" Yvette asked him. "I dunno," Mr. Mills replied. "It's up to you."
About an hour later, he said, Ms. Bottineau came in and announced she was going to bed. "Me and Yvette said she should take him to a hospital," Mr. Mills said. "She said 'No, no, no.' "
A half-hour to an hour later, Jeffrey's room fell silent.
Mr. Mills said that on the Thursday, he'd remarked to Yvette, "I don't think he is long for this world."
Why would he say that, the prosecutor asked.
"Some people," Mr. Mills explained, as though he were blessed with second sight or was perhaps a medium, "have those feelings that something bad is going to happen. And sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't."
Yes, some people can listen to the sounds of a child dying, and remember the night as the one when they had a sinus infection such that they couldn't sleep, and stayed at the PlayStation for hours and hours in a suddenly still house.
