Victim's family speaks out
CBC News | Posted: December 23, 1999 9:48 AM | Last Updated: December 23, 1999
The relatives of a murdered Mission woman and her daughter are moving on with their lives, now that the murder trial of Doug Holtam is over.
A B.C. Supreme Court jury found Holtam guilty of first-degree murder in the beating deaths of his 37-year-old wife, Leonora, and their six-year-old daughter Jenny.
Holtam was also found guilty of trying to kill his son Cody.
Marion Guild is Leonora Holtam's older sister. She says she's still thinking about Doug Holtam's videotaped confession where he said he thought about the attack constantly, but it didn't stop him from sleeping. "I hope he has difficulty sleeping now," she says. The Crown argued Holtam had become obsessed with a woman he met three weeks before he used a hammer to beat wife and daughter to death and severely injure his son.
Leonora Holtam's brother, Jim Mckelvey, says there is no sense trying to explain the crime. "A person who can explain it is just as demented as Doug is," he says. "There is no normal human being who can explain what happened."
Holtam, now 39, must serve 25 years before he is eligible for parole.