Crown cites 'irrefutable' evidence in Hikoalok trial closing arguments, defence makes case for manslaughter

Tyler Hikoalok’s defence team conceded there is evidence of sexual assault and enough evidence to support a guilty verdict of manslaughter in the 2018 killing of 59-year-old church librarian Elisabeth Salm, but asked the jury to find Hikoalok not guilty of premeditated first-degree murder.

The defence team, led by Michael Smith and Brook Laforest, made its closing arguments to the jury Thursday and said Hikoalok was “blackout” drunk from drinking alcohol on May 24, 2018, and could not have formed the intent to harm or kill Salm as she worked alone in the Christian Science Reading Room on Laurier Avenue that morning.

Hikoalok also likely suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, according to a mid-trial assessment performed by a forensic psychiatrist, and exhibited signs of a mild intellectual delay.

Dr. Julian Gojer was called by the defence to testify last week and told the jury he had “ruled out” the possibility of a not-criminally responsible verdict in the case. He also ruled out the possibility of “automatism,” or that Hikoalok was so severely intoxicated that he would have lost voluntary control over his actions.

Hikoalok testified he had no recollection of what happened during a 24-hour period after waking up that morning and drinking vodka, then meeting with friends and drinking rum.

“Tyler Hikoalok, in the state he was in as a result of alcohol consumption, but also as a result of a (pre-existing) brain condition… he did not have the ability to form intent to kill Elisabeth Salm,” Smith told the jury Thursday. “And not only that, but he had no recollection of what transpired in that period of time. When you couple the alcohol and (the brain condition), you can only come to the conclusion that Tyler Hikoalok did not form the intent to bring harm to Elisabeth Salm.”

Crown prosecutors Lisa Miles and Brian Holowka countered there exists an “extensive body of evidence” that Hikoalok “viciously” attacked Salm, while pointing to trial evidence that “contradicts” Hikoalok’s claims of intoxication and memory loss.

“Tyler Hikoalok entered the reading room, he attacked Elisabeth Salm and brutally beat her about the face and head,” Holowka told the jury, detailing the 54 injuries documented during a postmortem examination.

“He sexually assaulted her in the course of this vicious attack, and the extreme violence to her face, head and neck incapacitated her. She was virtually unrecognizable as a result of the injuries,” Holowka said. Salm died the following day from traumatic brain injury.

“Tyler Hikoalok is irrefutably linked to the crime scene,” Holowka said. “His semen was on the half-naked body (of the victim)… Her blood is on the bracelet Hikoalok wore. It undeniably places him in close proximity to Elisabeth Salm. Her blood was on his left shoe — it puts him in the reading room at the time of the attack and the bloodletting.”

The Crown said Hikoalok’s claims of extreme intoxication and a memory blackout were contradicted by video evidence that shows Hikoalok exhibiting no signs of of impairment as he’s seen entering and leaving the crime scene.

“We see him make a decision and enter the reading room, where Ms. Salm is alone,” Holowka said.

He is then seen taking a separate exit more than an hour later and “moving fast, with a purpose,” according to Holowka, in an attempt to “escape detection.”

Hikoalok is seen on surveillance video wearing different clothes as he arrives 31 minutes later at his former school, the Debbie Campbell Learning Academy.

“It speaks to his intent, his decision-making, his clear-eyed thought process,” Holowka told the jury.

Staff from the school who interacted with Hikoalok that day testified they observed no signs of intoxication and nothing out of the ordinary.

Hikoalok’s testimony is “replete with inconsistencies,” Holowka said, between the varying accounts he gave to police following his arrest, the account he gave to the psychiatrist and the one he gave to the court.

Hikoalok’s claims of memory loss, the Crown argued, should be “rejected” by the jury.

“Those claims are undermined by everything in the evidence,” Holowka said. “They do not withstand scrutiny.”

Smith, in his closing address, asked the jury to consider whether the Crown had proven its case against Hikoalok beyond a reasonable doubt.

“None of us were in that Christian Science reading room that day… none of us really knows what transpired,” Smith said.

“Whatever happened, it had to be in the moment. It had to be impulsive. There was no reason — at all — for Tyler Hikoalok to do any harm to Elisabeth Salm and there would have been no intent to do so…

“When he had his encounter with Ms. Salm, that encounter was impulsive, and what came of that encounter with Ms. Salm was unintentional,” Smith said. “That is not first-degree murder. That is manslaughter.”

Smith conceded the jury would likely find that Salm was sexually assaulted.

“However, that doesn’t get you to the fact that Tyler Hikoalok intended to kill this woman,” Smith argued. “You cannot make that quantum legal leap.”

The jury is scheduled to commence deliberations after receiving legal instructions from Superior Court Justice Anne London-Weinstein on Friday.

ahelmer@postmedia.com