Accused killer blames misdeed on crack cocaine

MONTREAL - The man accused of kidnapping and murdering a Corrections Canada employee from a Laval parking lot blames crack cocaine for the crime.

Claude Larouche admits he killed Natasha Cournoyer, but says it was a drug-fuelled accident.

On the stand Larouche said that the day Cournoyer went missing, Oct. 1, 2009, he was on a cocaine binge at a Laval motel.

When he ran out, he met his dealer, acquired more crack and powdered cocaine, and continued consuming while sitting in the parking lot of Place Laval, a strip mall near the Corrections Canada office.

Police earlier said that Larouche used about three grams of cocaine and crack, which they described as a very large quantity even for habitual drug users.

Larouche said that at one point he was accosted by a woman he did not know, who asked what he was doing in the car.

He said he explained what he was doing, then asked her to go back to his hotel, and she agreed.

Larouche said he had consensual sex with the woman, then they got in a fight and he strangled her. He then put her in his truck thinking she was asleep.

However Larouche claims he was so drug-addled that it was only after he drove home, went to sleep, and woke up the next morning only to find her body in his truck that he realized she was dead.

The Crown has already entered into evidence video surveillance of Larouche's truck pulling into the Corrections Canada parking lot at 1:35 p.m. on Oct. 1, 2009, and parking next to Cournoyer's car.

Cournoyer was last seen alive at 8:09 p.m. when she returned to her car after working late.

Her body was found five days later the East End.

Larouche testified that after he placed Cournoyer's body in the forest, he covered it with a blanket to keep it warm but later returned to remove it because he hoped it would help somebody find her body.

The testimony attracted much questioning from the prosecuting attorney while the judge listened with eyebrows raised.