Extreme Emotional Dysfunction

"It would not be fair to subject [Ms. Doucet] to another trial. The abuse she suffered and the protracted nature of these proceedings have taken an enormous toll on her", ruled the Supreme Court of Canada. With one dissenting opinion, Morris Fish, characterizing the judicial stay "drastic". He felt that justice would be better served to order a re-trial.

Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo

Nicole Ryan, the Nova Scotia woman who tried to hire a hit man to kill her abusive husband, is free after the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a stay of proceedings last month. 

 

Men tend to be predators. Women can be sociopaths too, not geared to be predators in quite the same way as men; they prey on the mind, on the reputation, use an instinctive sympathy raised by the perceived plight of a woman when it becomes a vicarious response to believe implicitly when a woman insists she she has been horribly abused. Because so many have, in fact, and that is an observable and repetitive fact of life.

In the case of Nicole Ryan, the woman from Nova Scotia who bred within herself an antipathy so all-consuming that she dreamed of the kind of revenge that would cease life for her ex-husband, the father of their child, the Canadian justice system found it in itself to believe her claims of dreadful, mind-bending stratagems of control she claimed her husband abused her with; threats, fear, intimidation, a lowering menace constantly in her face.

Physical abuse both implied and practised, and certainly not beyond the realm of potential should she continue to defy his controlling authority. Leaving her with such a deep-seated rage and resentment against the man that she plotted to have him killed. In fact, hired a hit-man. Who as it happened turned out to be a dud; after paying him the agreed-upon fee of $25,000, he demanded more before he would deign to carry out her wishes.

She went on to take steps to find a replacement, to hire someone else who would commit to doing the deed, and she would give him only a down-payment, the balance on delivery once the assignment had been successfully concluded. Once burnt, the second time exercising the caution of experience. Trouble was, clever as she thought she was, it was to an undercover RCMP officer that she revealed her plan and made arrangements for him to carry out her plan.

He recorded their conversation, and she was arrested immediately afterward.To the inquisitive man who wanted to know her reason for ordering the death of her husband she responded "No", when he asked "Any beatings, like did he beat you or anything? Ever laid a hand on ya?"  "Attitude", she said. "How much do you, how much can you take?", she responded.

For almost fifteen years, testified Nicole Ryan later in court in her defence, Mike Ryan had been an abusive, violent husband. He bullied her, threatened her, and on four separate occasions held a pistol to her head. He had also grabbed her by the throat threatening to "kill" and "destroy" her, had pinned her against walls. And she said nothing, revealed to no one the extent of her misery and her fears for herself and their daughter.

Her statements to police on a number of occasions appeared to call into question the veracity of any of her statements. There were quite a few instances of confusing statements. There was, moreover no evidence to verify the credibility of her charges in defence of her criminal act of conspiring to murder her husband. No evidence of any kind, no third-party corroboration, nothing.

She still managed to convince Justice David Farrar of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court that she had been justified in attempting to arrange for her husband's murder; her defense as a traumatized, vulnerable woman convinced him of her innocence and he concluded that she had been entirely justified in contracting for his murder. "A reasonable person would have acted in the same manner", he said.

The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal upheld the acquittal. And, finally, the Supreme Court ordered a stay of proceedings. Forget about it, no crime committed. This was an innocent and trusting woman pushed to the edge and beyond. Her husband was with the Royal Canadian Regiment, a master corporal when they met at a junior officer leadership course in 1990. They married two years later, even though she later claimed "He was a bully and he was aggressive towards the other students."

During the trial her husband was never called to the stand as a witness. He was never given the opportunity to defend himself against the charges of abuse his former wife brought against him. The abuse and rage, the forced sex, the threats. Nicole Ryan had once been accused in 2006 by her elder sister, Peggy Doucet, of trying to run her down with a car, who reported the incident to the RCMP.

"She keeps a grudge. She will never in her life talk to me again. She blames me for [her] not having any friends. ...I was her target. She just hates me." Soon afterward an incident occurred between Nicole Ryan and her father Herbert Boudreau. At a court hearing she alleged "physical and mental abuse" against her father and her sister. She claimed her father was "a very violent man" who demanded she repay money he claimed she owed him.

As for Mike Ryan, in an interview he said he "started anger management counselling" a year before he and Nicole married. He never, he said, ever abused her, emotionally, physically or sexually. He never held a gun to her head. And it was he who suggested a divorce, not she as she claimed. For six years of their marriage while he moved with the military from one base to another across Canada, serving a tour in Bosnia as well, his wife remained in Nova Scotia, close to her family.

He met another member of the military in late 2006 and began a relationship with her. In a 2007 email Nichole Ryan wrote to her husband "Seeing those pictures [of Mr. Ryan and Ms. Huntley] I could ripe [sic] your head apart." He responded by writing: "Nicole, I would like us to try and put whatever anger we have for each other and deal with this.

"If not for our own sanity, we need to put [our daughter] before us. Everything we do from this point on will impact her. I don't want to fight...  We should first decide what we want and talk sensibly. Whatever you want to do is fine with me, Please be reasonable."

Her response appears to have been a 'final solution' for her husband, and proceeded to make arrangements in which her father appears to have been involved. He was charged with counselling the commission of murder and with conspiracy to commit murder, but the charges were eventually withdrawn, once his daughter had been acquitted.

During a child custody battle in 2009 a Nova Scotia court ordered a child-needs assessment and the psychologist who conducted the assessment interviewed both parents as well as the little girl. "Ms. Doucet has provided inconsistent information about Mr. Ryan (e.g. whether he physically abused her or not) and her reported concerns about him have escalated over time. 

"There is much, if not more, evidence that Ms. Doucet poses a risk to [their daughter's] physical and emotional well-being. This includes information that she may have threatened to take her own and [her daughter's] life", observed the health professional.

That she may have contrived to have her husband murdered could be "considered extreme family violence and would be expected to have a devastating effect on a child", the psychologist concluded.

Their child has since lived with her father and his new wife, in Angus, Ontario. She lives a normal life and is a happy young girl of 13. She has heard nothing from her mother in three years says her father: "Not a phone call, not even a Christmas card or birthday card."