On November 7, 2004 Stephan Gaetan Lee stabbed Steven Tavares 28 times while he was asleep in his room at the Delta Lodge in Kananaskis Country, a tourist destination in the Alberta Rockies.
Lee, who was a co-worker of Tavares was charged with his murder and in 2005 went on trial for first-degree murder which the judge hearing the case said that on the surface, what happened to Tavares appeared to be a murder.
I don’t know what was going through Justice Peter Martin’s head when he made that statement, but when a person goes out of their way to trick security into let them into somebody’s room so that they can stab somebody to death, its murder and it was planned.
Martin’s suggestion that what Lee did to Tavares appears to be murder on the surface is absolutely ridiculous, and totally whacked, and it makes me wonder if the judge was of sound mind himself while he was sitting on the bench during the first-degree murder trial.
Was he fit to sit on the bench given his remark? I highly f**king doubt it, and after reading that Lee is now roaming the streets of Calgary and Edmonton three years after he got into a fight with Tavares, a fight that was broken up by another co-worker from Nexxa Industries who had taken their employees to the lodge for a weekend retreat, I would have to conclude that the judge should be locked up in mental institution, after all he couldn’t have been any more rational himself than when he claimed Lee wasn’t criminally responsible for his actions because he was suffering from a mental disorder that deprived him of the ability to make a rational decision.
The bottom-line is that Lee was rational enough to conclude that after Tavares called him to make amends , he had to kill Tavares, and to that end he was rational enough to trick security into letting him into Tavares ‘s room where he stabbed him 28 times to make sure he was dead.
All up-Lee was rational enough to formulate a plan to kill Tavares, and therefore the judge should have concluded that this was indeed murder, and that Lee should go to jail for his crime. But like I implied, the judge was no more rational than he claimed Lee to be.
By the way, psychiatrists are not always right about their clinical assessments either, and at times they can be easily fooled by their subjects, which Lee was probably rational enough to do.
Who’s to say Lee wasn’t fooling them? I want to hear from you.
One other thing about Lee’s rationality, after he committed the murder he returned to Calgary and told his mother what he had done, at which time she promptly called police. Rational?
Stephan Gaetan Lee should be behind bars, or at the very least spending a few more years in a mental institution, but instead the cold-blooded killer is walking the streets of Calgary, likely dependent on medication, medication that he can either chose to take or not.
Justice Peter Martin is a waste of skin on the Court of Queen’s bench in my opinion, and I hope for his sake his decision that Lee can’t be held criminally responsible for his actions, doesn’t come back to haunt him.
This is obviously a huge miscarriage of justice, and because of that miscarriage of justice, Calgarians and Edmontonians are less safe today than they were the day before Lee was released from the mental institution.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Dawn // Nov 28, 2008 at 5:05 AM
THANK-YOU! Finally people are starting to get it!
2 Sheena // Nov 28, 2008 at 5:20 AM
Im sick to my stomach, and so very disheartened that we were let down by the justice system- who would have thought that the victim and the ones that love him would be the ones to lose.
3 Christine // Nov 29, 2008 at 9:28 PM
I am horrified that this monster is able to roam the streets. What has happened to the justice system in Canada? It’s days like this that make me glad I no longer live in Canada and truly embarassed to be a Canadian! My thoughts and prayers are with Steve’s family and friends.
4 cj // Dec 12, 2008 at 7:49 AM
Allow me to clarify this: Evil is when harm is done for the enjoyment of performing the crime. Evil people have no conscience and value their own wants higher than the suffering of others (like pedophiles or sadists). Crazy is not evil, crazy is when a voice or some other craziness takes over the mind. Craziness can happen to anyone who is a decent human being.
Hi cj
Let me put the definition of evil out there for you cj.
from the Oxford dictionary: wicked; harmful
Decent human beings can delusional and paranoid too, and do crazy things. They’re held accountable for their actions aren’t they cj?
5 CJ // Dec 12, 2008 at 11:51 AM
Bernardo and side kick Carla Homolka are evil, Clifford Olsen is evil.
None of them are crazy. However, they were charming narcissistic and calculating. They enjoyed harming and were wicked.
So cj,
Do ya not think that Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olsen are not a little more mentally unbalanced than Stephan Gaetan Lee? I think so, and I think a lot of readers who visit Crooked in Canada would too. How about Robert Pickton? All of them are serving life sentences. They were found to be criminally responsible despite being labeled psychopathic, and neurological and personality disorder. A mental health thing right?
Sure the argument can be made that Lee only killed one person, at least as far as anybody knows, but if Bernardo, Olsen and Pickton had only killed one person each, then the outcome for them could have been the same, unless of course Justice Peter Martin was sitting on the bench at the time of their trials.
6 Nurse Ratched // Dec 12, 2008 at 2:32 PM
CC,
You seem uninformed about mental illness and the Criminal Code.
To be found not criminally responsible, having a mental problem isn’t enuff. The mental problem must prevent the person from knowing what he/she is doing, or knowing why he/she is doing it, or knowing that doing it is wrong.
It is clear that you carry a lot of influence with your readers. Maybe it’s time for you to find a more constructive cause celebre. How ’bout the dismal state of mental health care in Canada, and “the overworked and underpaid frontline mental health workers” (your observation).
Maybe, if people with mental illness have access to better treatment in the first place, unfortunate events such as this may be prevented.
CG says
My point exactly. Stephan Gataen Lee knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew that he would need to trick his way into his victim’s hotel room before he could stab him 28 times. Premeditation you think? And of course immediately after committing the murder he fled to Calgary to tell his sister and mother what he had done. He knew it was wrong then, and he knew it was wrong when he stabbed Lee.
You were aware that this murder was precipitated by a fight between the two men don’t you.
As for me being uniformed about mental illness as it relates to criminal responsibility, of course I am not an expert, but my point is that in Lee’s case he knew exactly what he was doing as he did have to plan it. Also, you are aware that prior to the stabbing his victim, somebody tried to make amends, put the fight that precipitated the murder, behind them.
I don’t doubt for one second that Lee has a mental illness of some sort, as was the case with Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olsen and Robert Pickton, but the latter three were held criminally responsible for their actions. Why not Lee? His mental illness didn’t cause him to plan how to kill his victim, but it certainly was used to prevent his responsibility.
Have you signed the petition by the way? That petition clearly states that legislation needs to be changed as it relates to criminal offenses. Would you agree the law needs to change, that three years in a mental hospital isn’t enough for somebody who planned and committed a cold-blooded murder?
One other thing, sending mentally ill patients to prison isn’t anything new. It happens all the time, however in Lee’s case he got lucky with a sympathetic judge, one who is likely no more knowledgeable about mental health than myself. Having said that, Robert Latimer do you think that extenuating circumstances drove him over the edge so to speak when he took his suffering daughter’s life? He went to jail for how long before he was released from jail?
The law that is applied when one’s mental health is used a defense in criminal trials is discriminatory, wouldn’t you agree?
I am not talking about better treatment of people with mental illness either, I’m talking about using mental illness as a defense in murder cases, sentencing, and of course notifying the family of murder victims when the killer is released, which in the case of the Tavares family never occurred.
One more thing Nurse Ratched, should I expect a slew of others using bugmenot.com to remain anonymous to post on this topic or will it just be you and cj? Why the anonimity, afraid your email box will be flooded by people who disagree with your point of view, or are you just toying with me?
I trust you and cj are prepared for another cold Saskatchewan winter. I don’t need your email to know where you are posting from by the way. You should try blocking your IP number too.
7 cj // Dec 13, 2008 at 11:31 AM
First of all Clifford Olsen, Paul Bernardo, Carla Holmolka and Pickton are not “mentally unbalanced”. They are not mentally ill, they have mental health. They just like to perform torture, rape, humiliation. Because they are evil.
Second, someone who is a psychopath is not mentally ill, it just means they have no conscience. Serial killers and con men fit this type. This is just who they are and they do not suffer from a mental illness because of it.
Personality disorder, just means you are a pain in the ass. Lots of people have personality disorders.
I do not know how or why you mention Latimer in this conversation, he is neither mentally ill or evil. He seems like a kind man who loved his family very much.
CJ-you don’t think frustration helped push Latimer over the edge, that he was in a rational state of mind when he made the decision to kill his child to relieve her suffering.
Bernardo, Olsen and Pickton are mentally unbalanced mate. Check your facts.
Psychopathy is a mental disorder. Some call it an illness, some don’t.
8 cj // Dec 15, 2008 at 6:01 AM
Bernardo, Holmolka, Pickton and Olsen clearly have some kind mental disorder but that does not mean they have a mental illness that caused them to lose touch with reality. In other words, they were/are not “mentally unbalanced”.
Latimer made a difficult choice, maybe out of frustration. Frustration is not related to any mental illness. He should not be part of this conversation.
9 Woman Takes Page Out Of Casey Anthony’s Manual On How To Explain Away A Missing Child // Dec 27, 2008 at 10:22 AM
[...] somebody to escape facing real consequences for a real crime. The case of the recently released Stephan Gaetan Lee in Canada is proof of that although his crime is far worse than the one Megan McCormic had [...]
10 YO Yo // Jan 31, 2009 at 9:30 AM
I was friends with this clown when I grew up and he was always messed up but lots of kids were simular. In high school he was always by himself. I think he should be in an institute for life. He just got caught with drugs and guns recently I heard.
11 CG // Jan 31, 2009 at 10:41 AM
Where did you hear he was caught with guns and drugs? I would like to follow up on that.
12 YO Yo // Jan 31, 2009 at 1:22 PM
I am sorry it was another Stefan Lee and spelt differently…. Sorry people.
13 CG // Feb 1, 2009 at 9:09 AM
No worries mate!
14 AC // Apr 28, 2010 at 12:48 PM
Well I was friends with him after highschool was done and I saw a few sides to him. Now that he’s been inside he’s probably had more knowledge of how to commit crimes and how to play people. It was so shocking to hear that his happened and that he did this. But the other side to this is his family. I knew his sister very well and she killed herself because of all of this. It was a shame.
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