Dangerous Offender

Life and fortune occasionally deliver strange messages through experiences that may in the end have very little relation to what the individual experiencing them becomes as a human being. When Jeffrey Verdon, a resident of Ottawa, was a child of four, he and his 2-1/2-year-old brother were thrown by a 18-year-old neighbour who suffered a severe mental disequilibrium, into the freezing winter waters of the Ottawa River.

While Jeffrey Verdon was saved by the quick response of a passerby who saw him in the water, his brother died. That was a hugely unfortunate incident, one that cannot but have impacted to some degree on the psyche of a child. Whether that child would be capable of fully understanding what happened, and whether that incident did have a hugely deleterious impact on his perceiving of human nature and the dangers that could lurk anywhere, however, seems debatable.

As it happens, two psychiatrists identify their expert opinion that the now-adult Mr. Verdon is a high risk to re-offend, as a psychopath given to raging violence, capable of killing another human being. It is their opinion that the incident of his having lost his brother and almost himself losing his life in that long-ago occurrence was not likely to have represented an occurrence relating to his violent criminal behaviour.

Jeffrey Verdon, 36, was declared a dangerous offender on Friday. He is pictured here after being acquitted of forcible confinement, assault, sexual assault and uttering a death threat in 2009. Megan Gillis/Ottawa Sun.

"The point here is that the accused is not being sentenced exclusively on the basis of the predicate offence, but more importantly on the combined basis of the predicate offence and increased importance of preventing the risk of dangers he represents based on pattern analysis.
"The accused comes with a long and serious violent criminal history and a long history of very limited motivation to address basic problems.
"He has a long history of being unsuccessful at risk management including parole violations, being unlawfully at large, re-offending violently while on parole, refusing to attend programs.
"Not only does he work against treatment as for example refusing anger management programming but also he misuses or does not follow the taking of prescribed medications."
Ontario Court Justice Reginald Levesque

By the time this man reached 18 he had launched himself on a career of criminality. In 1995 he and a friend had targeted 63-year-old Robert Savoie as easy pickings. Mr. Savoie was awaiting a newspaper drop-off for distribution, close to where Mr. Verdon was living. Mr. Verdon was drunk when he and his partner informed the delivery man they wanted a ride. What they were after was the battery in his vehicle. And they discovered $55 in Mr. Savoie's pocket as well, a bonus.

Mr. Savoie begged the two to stop beating him. He suffered multiple blunt-force injuries to his head, causing skull fractures. His head, scalp, brain and scrotum were all dreadfully bruised. The 63-year-old was no match for two 18-year-olds, and they murdered him.

Dangerous offender designation is serious business; it equates to perpetual incarceration. The designation is arrived at simply enough, if an individual's behaviour "constitutes a threat to the life, safety or physical or mental well-being of other persons."

There have been 29 documented criminal incidents in which Mr. Verdon displayed his penchant for violent and vicious offence.

In court, when Justice Levesque handed down his ruling that would have the effect of ensuring that Mr. Verdon, now 36, is imprisoned for life, the man himself seemed calm and light-hearted enough to appear affable and disengaged, though he took umbrage at some of the things that the judge, in condemning him to life in prison, said of his criminal behaviour.