Clifford James Blake's sordid death was just the final indignity in this poor mans life. The Constance Bay man had had a wretched childhood, ruined by the sexual abuse he suffered at the notorious St. Joseph's Training School for Boys in Alfred. He sometimes drank heavily, but worked hard at Energy, Mines and Resources before being laid off in the early 1990s. He had three children with his first wife, Doris.

      Clifford Blake, and his common law wife, Colette Nelson, began living together in in a small house on Sunning Hills Road in September of 1995. They shared the home with an individual named Jean-Paul Poitras. It was to be a short and painful relationship. By early December 1995, Ms. Nelson had already decided to end her relationship with Mr. Blake. She wanted out because Mr. Blake was known to be a violent and possessive person. It was more than she had bargained for. Sometime in mid December Nelson packed her bags and left the home and traveled to Welland, Ontario where she stayed with her sister.

      While not much is known, Mr. Blake was last seen alive on the evening of December 14, 1995. He had spent the night with an acquaintance of Ms. Nelson's - an individual named Jean-Paul Poitras. After that night, he seemed to have simply disappeared off the face of the earth.

      A few weeks prior to December 14, Poitras and Nelson had told Mr. Blake's sister that he was unhappy and planning to go to Timmins and would be gone for good. On December 15th, Pointras told a friend that he had taken Mr. Blake to the bus station on the evening of December 14th and saw him board a bus marked "Timmins".

      Within about a week of Mr. Blake's disappearance, Ms. Nelson returned from her sisters home in Welland. She returned to an empty house, but it wasn't empty for long. Almost immediately upon her return her relationship with Mr. Poitras became romantic.

      Poitras immediately began using Blake's credit cards, bank card, and forged cheques in his name on numerous occasions between December 15th and January 3rd.

      A cloth soaked in what was later to be determined to be Mr. Blake's blood was found on December 22nd.

      On Jan. 2, 1996, a snow plow operator discovered human remains along Stonecrest Road in West Carleton. Various parts of his dismembered body were found in different locations in the following days. The forensic evidence established that Mr. Blake was shot in the head three times in what had all of the appearances of an execution style killing. Provincial police used fingerprints from a dismembered hand to identify the victim as Mr. Blake, 55.

      Subsequent police evidence suggested that Poitras and Nelson had remained in close contact during the two weeks following her departure. In fact, there was plenty of evidence to suggest that Pointras and Nelson had been romantically involved long before she left for Welland.

      Subsequent investigations showed that in the last week of December, Poitras and Ms. Nelson had done an extensive clean-up of the house where Mr. Blake had been killed. They cleaned and shampooed the rugs, repainted walls, and reupholstered chairs and a couch. Pointras also pressure cleaned the inside and the outside of his truck, even though it was the dead of winter.

      The killing had apparently occurred in the home that had been shared by the Poitras, Mr. Blake and Ms. Nelson. Poitras' rifle was identified as the probable murder weapon. The forensic evidence also revealed that Mr. Blake was lying on the floor of the bedroom in the home when at least one of the three shots was fired into his head. One of those shots came from very close range. Ammunition located in the home was consistent with the ammunition used to fire the fatal shots. A large quantity of Mr. Blake's blood was found in the back of the appellant's truck. The cloth soaked in Mr. Blake's blood that was found on December 22, 1995 was an exact match to cloth seized from the appellant's garbage.

      There was no evidence that Mr. Blake ever went to Timmins. In fact, there was evidence that no bus marked "Timmins" left the bus station on December 14, 1995.

      Mr. Blake's common-law wife, Colette Nelson, 51, and Jean-Paul Poitras, 46, were arrested and charged with first-degree murder. The trial for the two accused began May 4, 1996. Both testified and denied both any romantic involvement prior to late December 1995 and any involvement in Mr. Blake's death.

      The circumstantial evidence pointing to Poitras as the killer was overwhelming. There was also ample evidence to support the Crown's theory that Poitras decided to kill Mr. Blake so that he and Ms. Nelson could live together as man and wife. That evidence included the following:

      ¨ The appellant and Ms. Nelson were romantically involved before Mr. Blake was killed. ¨ The appellant and Ms. Nelson spread a false story that Mr. Blake was intending to go to Timmins and the appellant told a friend that Mr. Blake had gone to Timmins on December 14th. ¨ On the evening of December 14th, the appellant spoke with Ms. Nelson twice on the telephone. ¨ Within days of the disappearance of Mr. Blake, the appellant and Ms. Nelson were living together.

      Poitras denied that he shot Mr. Blake, and testified that he let him off at the bus station on the evening of December 14, 1995, and never saw him again. He believed that Mr. Blake was going to Timmins, Ontario to live.