Posted on 07/24/2007 3:15:42 AM PDT by Clive
Note to readers: The following story contains graphic content that may offend some readers. Discretion is advised
REGINA -- He kept one of the kidnapped boys on a leash.
He made both of his victims call him "master" for days while he repeatedly raped and taunted them.
The tale of depravity was revealed Monday in a packed Regina courtroom as notorious child molester Peter Robert Whitmore accepted a controversial plea bargain that could see him paroled in as few as six years.
Whitmore pleaded guilty to a dozen charges in last summer's kidnapping and sexual assault of two boys -- a teenager from Winnipeg and a 10-year-old boy from Saskatchewan.
"The facts of these crimes and the pattern of these crimes make them the most serious imaginable," Crown prosecutor Anthony Gerein told reporters outside court. "One can't envision anything more grave than this."
In exchange for the guilty plea, the repeat sex offender was not deemed a dangerous offender, a designation that likely would have brought with it an indefinite prison sentence.
Whitmore, 36, walked into the courtroom looking clean cut and pale, his lips pursed tightly and downturned, and his hands shackled at his sides, as he accepted his life sentence before Justice Ian McLellan.
The court heard that Whitmore arrived in Winnipeg last summer and began working at a construction site under an assumed name.
Whitmore needed somewhere to stay, and a co-worker suggested Whitmore could move into his home.
The arrangement wasn't approved of by the man's common-law spouse though -- nor did she agree to Whitmore's request to take her 14-year-old son on a camping trip.
She did agree to let the boy travel to Regina with both men, however, and the three left Winnipeg together on July 21.
The prosecutor told the courtroom that after arriving in Brandon, Man., Whitmore claimed he was having van troubles, and convinced the man to go back to Winnipeg on the bus to get money.
The boy stayed with Whitmore.
The prosecutor said Whitmore drove the 14-year-old to Moose Mountain Provincial Park and showed him pornographic movies of boys and men having sex, in an effort to induce the boy to have sex with him.
When the boy refused, Whitmore became angry and sexually assaulted the boy in various ways, threatening to kill the boy and his family.
The next day, Whitmore let the boy call his mother briefly, then took him to an abandoned house in Saskatchewan, which he outfitted with deadbolts.
Whitmore sexually assaulted the boy at the house many times throughout the next week, as well as in a hotel outside Regina.
At some point, Whitmore forced the boy to shave off his own pubic hair, presumably to make the 14-year-old look younger, Gerein said.
Whitmore and the boy encountered the other victim on the afternoon of July 23, when Whitmore drove into a farmyard looking to sell his DVD player for gas money.
Whitmore claimed the 14-year-old was his son, and asked the 10-year-old's mother if the two boys could spend time together.
When Whitmore was away from the teen, the boy was forced to carry a walkie talkie which kept them in constant contact, the court was told.
On the morning of July 30, the two boys set out on their bikes to explore a "haunted house" in the area, while Whitmore pretended to go and do errands.
When the boys arrived at the house, Whitmore grabbed the 10-year-old, bound him with duct tape, put him in the van and wrapped him in a blanket, ordering the teen to sit on him.
"I don't remember a lot about what happened," the young boy would eventually tell a victims services worker. "I don't want to remember."
Whitmore took the boys to a house near Kipling which he had previously equipped with chains.
The boys were kept at the Kipling house for two days, during which Whitmore committed numerous sexual assaults on both boys and subjected the 10-year-old to horrific degradation and abuse -- including threatening to cut off all the boy's skin or cut him into pieces, making him walk around naked, chaining him to the bed, punching him in the ear as "discipline," pulling his hair, and forcing the boy to call him "master."
Whitmore showed both boys child pornography, and once took them out of the house with the 10-year-old on a dog leash. Whitmore threatened to abduct the boy's cousin and other children, and made them listen to the news, laughing at the police's efforts to find them.
The Kipling farmhouse was surrounded by RCMP on Aug. 1, after a farmer noticed fresh tire tracks leading into the yard, and a 10-hour standoff ensued.
The prosecutor said Whitmore let the 10-year-old go and claimed the 14-year-old was free to go as well -- but he kept the gun pointed at the teen's face as an incentive to stay.
During the standoff, Whitmore tried to make teen to kill him, but the boy refused. Whitmore then drank a mixture of tobacco, WD-40 and water in an apparent suicide attempt.
Eventually, Whitmore and the teen both left the house.
The older boy continues to have trouble sleeping, is resistant to physical affection and freezes when he sees someone who reminds him of Whitmore, the prosecutor said.
In a victim impact statement filed with the court, the boy wrote: "I wish none of this ever happened, then I would still be me."
The younger victim has been taken out of school because of bullying in the wake of the well-publicized incident.
"I had marks on my leg," the 10-year-old later told a victims services worker.
"I told my sisters that I had fallen in a gopher hole. The truth is that I was chained to the bed. ... I had to pee in a bucket. I heard sounds at night. There were mice in my bed.
"I like mice so I shared my food with the mice."
A statement filed by the boy's mother says she wanted to "faint for joy" when she heard her son had been found.
"Little did I know that that was only the beginning," she wrote.
Defence lawyer Mervyn Shaw spoke briefly, telling the court about the sexual and physical abuse Whitmore himself claims to have suffered, including first being sexually molested at the age of two and later being hung by a rope and beaten regularly. He said Whitmore may have brain damage and has anxiety attacks.
Asked by the judge if he had anything to say, Whitmore replied, "I'm sorry."
He said: "I had no right to take either of these children from the love and safety of their families. I regret the harm I caused."
Whitmore is a notorious repeat sex offender whose criminal record includes several Ontario convictions beginning in 1993 for sex assaults against children and prison sentences totalling seven years.
He has previously stated in interviews he fears he will reoffend.
His victims would have the right to make submissions at any parole hearings -- something the father of the boy from Saskatchewan has vowed to do.
"Right now, Whitmore is where he belongs. And it's our goal to keep him there," he said recently.
"As far as I'm concerned, he's never getting out."
Regina Leader Post, with files from Winnipeg Free Press
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Wow. Should know better than to click such headers this early in the AM.
I would chide the Canadian legal system, for good measure, but then I’ve heard just as many horror stories in the US.
These creatures should be put down like the animals that they are.
In the end, the fact that gators take big bites will save a lot of sawing time.
A lead weight in crab infested waters would work quickly. I’ve read they can work very quickly.
The worst thing I've ever heard of came from imperial China. I'd tell you but I think the admin would probably pull the post. It involves amputation, a large clay pot, and several months of carefully administered food and water.
Try connecting the dots on that one.
Deemed non-dangerous. On what grounds? Pathetic. Now if he had been brought up on charges of unsafe storage of firearms.... Oh. canada.
Not a fair comparison.
Animals would never do that.
And our "society" doesn't have the balls to do it. I'm just hoping that various groups have studied the "Dateline" methods of catching this scum, and are having their own disposition methods. There's a lot of places to hide a body out in the Canadian wilderness...
I love the endless array of lame excuses the defense lawyer came up with for his delightful client.
There will, at least, be one less Liberal voter while this vermin is incarcerated,
Someone will have to explain to me why it was necessary to give this monster a plea deal. Are the prosecuters in Canada that lazy?
I can understand not wanting to put the children through the pain of testifying to the sexual assaults.
They at least should have been able to lock him up for kidnapping which should keep him in jail longer than 6 years.
During the standoff, Whitmore tried to make teen to kill him, but the boy refused.
In a few years I will wager the teen will wish he had made that decision differently.
And not wishing to return to prison, his next victims will be murdered.
His record seems to suggest otherwise.
Whitmore is a notorious repeat sex offender whose criminal record includes several Ontario convictions beginning in 1993 for sex assaults against children and prison sentences totalling seven years.
But he may have intended to kill these two boys.
He did move the two around quite a bit. I would be interesting to see if this offense MO is a change from his past offenses.
and as sad as it is, this guy was repeating abuse that had happened to him......but my gut tells me someone will be waiting for him when he gets out and it won’t be a good day.....
So sad and so true.
The maintenance of civilization requires a certain toughness which we have lost. We can no longer defend ourselves from evil in our midst or evil from abroad.
Our enemies are not plauged with such delicate, sensitive spirits that they can not squash a bug.
Why is the punishment always so light for these types of crimes? Does nobody take the hurting of our children seriously?
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