An Ottawa jury is deliberating at this hour on the fate of a man accused in a horrific case of domestic violence.
Mark Hutt has pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death. The crown wants the jury to convict him instead of first degree murder in the death of his wife, Donna Jones. For twelve days, Donna Jones lay dying in the basement of her home with burns to 40 percent of her body and multiple injuries everywhere else. Her husband says he scalded her accidentally with boiling water.
The jury now needs to decide whether his actions were "planned and deliberate" in an effort to kill her.
When a 911 call came in from the house that Hutt and Jones shared in December of 2009, Ottawa Police initially labelled the case a suspicious death.
“My wife’s not breathing,” a panicked Hutt told the 911 operator, “I just walked up, my wife’s dead.”
A frantic husband, Mark Hutt, explaining he had just found his 33-year-old wife Donna Jones dead.
Inside the house, police and paramedics discovered a horrific scene -- the young woman with burns over most of her body who had died in excruciating pain.
“I was making spaghetti,” Hutt told Ottawa Police Sergeant Mike Hudson during an interview at police headquarters December 6, 2009.
Hutt said he had accidentally scalded his wife with boiling water.
“She was behind me and she got drenched…I told her we need to go to a hospital.”
Five days later, Hutt was charged with murdering his wife after police discovered multiple injuries on Jones’ body.
“How did she get that broken nose?” Hudson asks in the second interview.
“As far as I know she hit the damn bed,” Hutt responds.
Over the course of the month-long trial crown prosecutors called friends and colleagues to the stand who talked about an abusive relationship. They feared for Jones' life. Medical experts detailed the injuries on Jones' body: infected burns, broken ribs, a broken nose, black eyes and 29 air gun pellets embedded in her body. Hutt has pleaded guilty to criminal negligence but the Crown is pushing for a first degree murder conviction. The jury started their deliberations in early afternoon. It’s unclear how long they will take. In his charge to the jury today, Justice Robert Maranger told them to put aside any anger they may have for Mark Hutt and concentrate on the facts of the case and the testimony from the 31 witnesses. The jury has three options: they can convict Hutt of what he's already pleaded to, which is criminal negligence causing death. They can decide on a more serious charge of 2nd degree murder or go with the most serious charge of murder in the first degree.
