Robert Matheson pleads guilty to role in Laura Jessome’s murder
CBC News | Posted: September 23, 2014 8:23 PM | Last Updated: September 23, 2014
Jessome’s body was found in a hockey bag floating on the Mira River in May 2012.
One of four men charged in the murder of a Cape Breton woman has pleaded guilty to his part in the crime.
Laura Jessome’s body was found in a hockey bag floating on the Mira River in May 2012.
Tuesday morning in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Sydney, 51-year-old Robert Matheson entered a surprise guilty plea to being an accessory after the fact.
Details of his part in the crime were read into the record, but those details are now covered by a publication ban.
Thirty-nine-year-old Thomas Ted Barrett is facing a charge of second degree murder in Jessome’s death.
A second man, 23-year-old Morgan James MacNeil, is also charged with second degree murder in Jessome’s death.The two men are scheduled to face a preliminary inquiry on those charges in November.
A fourth man, Brian Augustine Deruelle, is also facing an accessory charge.
Barrett is also accused of murdering another Cape Breton woman, 21-year-old Brett Elizabeth McKinnon.
McKinnon’s body wasn’t found until two years after she disappeared from her home in Glace Bay in 2006.
Thomas Barrett was charged with both murders in February of last year.