Colonel Russell Williams, Wing Commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, is pictured in this September 20, 2009 handout photo.HO
Prosecutors and defence counsel for accused killer and sex predator Colonel Russell Williams have reached an agreement in principle that would see the former air base commander plead guilty to all the charges against him, including 82 new burglary-related charges laid this week, two sources close to the investigation confirm.
Held in an isolation cell at the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee since shortly after his arrest in February, Col. Williams has ended his hunger strike, one of the sources also said.
"He wants to get this over with, he's had enough," the source said. "There's been a resolution."
In a brief court appearance by video link Thursday to address the fresh charges and remand his case to June, Col. Williams, 47, looked fitter and less haggard than he did during his last court date five weeks ago.
Since then he has made an abortive suicide attempt, by stuffing a cardboard toilet roll down his throat, and subsequently stopped eating.
"But he backed off on that and he's eating again," a source said.
Clad in his orange jail-issue jump suit during his five-minute court appearance, the former commander of the 8 Wing/CFB Trenton air base spoke briefly off-camera to Trenton lawyer Paul Lamain, acting as agent for the colonel's Ottawa-based chief defence counsel, Michael Edelson.
Hastings County Crown attorney Lee Burgess also told presiding Justice of the Peace Deanna Chapelle that "there has been disclosure provided" to Col. Williams's legal team, with more coming.
Col. Williams agreed to waive a reading of the new charges, and his case was remanded to June 24.
Whether that June rendezvous will take place is unclear. If he chooses, Col. Williams can at any time waive his right to a preliminary hearing and either ask to go straight to trial in Superior Court or enter a guilty plea.
He was arrested in February and charged with two counts of first-degree murder - one committed in November, the other at the end of January - along with a slew of charges arising from a pair of home-invasion sex attacks in Tweed in September, when two women living close to his home were tied up, blindfolded and photographed in the nude.
He is accused of murdering Jessica Lloyd, 27, of Belleville and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, of Brighton. Both women were asphyxiated.
His appearance Thursday in the small crowded courtroom, his third video link, came just hours after Ontario Provincial Police announced the fresh charges, which they said arose from an "extensive review" of unsolved crimes.
Dating back to September, 2007, all 82 stemmed from break-ins in Ottawa, Belleville and Tweed.
More than half the charges - 46 - involved unlawful entry to homes in Tweed, where Col. Williams lived during the week in a lakeside cottage after assuming command of the Trenton air base last July.
They comprise 36 counts of break, enter and theft; seven counts of break, enter and theft with intent to commit an indictable offence; and three counts of attempted break-and-enter.
Thirty-two charges involved burglaries in Ottawa, all within the residential Fallingbrook area.
Two arise from break-ins in Belleville.
The burglaries targeted the empty residences of women whose lingerie was stolen. In all, 48 incidents came to attention of police.
After the colonel's arrest, three days after a Feb. 8 spot check at a Belleville police roadblock, dozens of items were allegedly found in the garage of the Westboro-area Ottawa home Col. Williams shared with his wife.
If Col. Williams pleads guilty it would be unusual - it is rare for a defendant to plead guilty to first-degree murder and even more so when there is more than one offence.
The automatic penalty for multiple first-degree murder convictions is life imprisonment with no chance of parole for at least 25 years. (With a single conviction, the inmate can seek to make a parole application at the 15-year mark, under the so-called faint hope clause.) In this instance, however, sources familiar with the case say Col. Williams's motivation to expedite matters is threefold: The evidence is overwhelming; he wants to minimize the anguish of his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman; and he sees little point in accumulating large legal bills.
Outside court, Lt. Col. Tony O'Keeffe, who has acted as a liaison between Col. Williams and the military, said he visited the colonel in jail 10 days ago and that in appearance he had improved.
"He looked better to me."