Quebec court rejects Guy Turcotte's bid to be eligible for parole before 17 years

The Quebec Court of Appeal has rejected a challenge from former cardiologist Guy Turcotte, who is serving a life sentence for the murders of his two young children in 2009.

Turcotte was contesting the trial judge's ruling that he must serve 17 years of his life sentence before he is eligible to seek parole.

His lawyer, Pierre Poupart, argued in March that Turcotte was not a danger to society and should be eligible for parole after serving between 10 and 15 years.

"The one who is most terrorized by what he did is him," Poupart argued before the panel of three judges.

He said the trial judge didn't give enough weight to Turcotte's mental state at that time that the cardiologist killed his children, Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3.

Justice Allan R. Hilton wrote the 13-page judgment released Thursday, rejecting the appeal.

"The gravity of the crime is hardly in doubt," Hilton wrote. "Mr. Turcotte's degree of responsibility is complete. Obviously, he alone is responsible for the two murders."

The judgment was based on two fundamental questions, Hilton wrote: did the 17-year period of ineligibility for parole deviate from the proper sentencing range, and if so, did the trial judge commit an error of law or principle?"

Given the "tender age of the two victims, the vicious manner in which they were murdered, the devastating impact on their mother, Isabelle Gaston," Hilton ruled that the answer to both of these questions is no.

"The period of ineligibility of 17 years imposed by the trial judge is not unusual or disproportionate given the circumstances and taking account of other cases across Canada," Hilton wrote.

Turcotte was found guilty in 2015 of second-degree murder. He fatally stabbed his three-year-old daughter Anne-Sophie and five-year-old son Olivier a total of 46 times in February 2009.

He was found not criminally responsible at his first trial and was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Montreal and released in December 2012.

An appeals court overturned that verdict and Turcotte had to stand trial again, where he was found guilty.

The Crown contended during the 2015 trial that Turcotte killed his children as an act of vengeance against his then-estranged wife, Isabelle Gaston, because she was having an affair with one of his friends and because he could not handle the notion of being replaced by another man in their lives.