Jury finds woman not guilty in axe slaying

Ashleigh Pechaluk speaks to reporters after being acquitted of first-degree murder on Thursday, June 4, 2009.

A jury has found Ashleigh Pechaluk not guilty in the first-degree murder of Dennis Hoy, a GO Transit officer who was bludgeoned to death three years ago.

The 24-year-old woman who had sat in jail since she was charged more than two-and-a-half years ago, said she was confident that justice would eventually prevail.

"I always knew it was going to be okay," Pechaluk told reporters outside the courthouse on Thursday afternoon.

Her mother, Beverley Salton, was ecstatic about her daughter's release.

"I never, ever doubted that I would hear those words. Never. But it was wonderful to hear them," Salton said, referring to the not guilty verdict.

Pechaluk's trial began in April, when the Crown laid out its case, alleging that she and her lover, Nicola Puddicombe, 34, planned the murder of 36-year-old Dennis Hoy.

The GO Transit officer was found dead in his Puddicombe's apartment on Oct. 27, 2006.

Puddicombe and Hoy had been in a long-term relationship at the time of his death.

Police determined that Hoy had been bludgeoned to death with an axe and they soon arrested Pechaluk in his murder.

More than six months later, Puddicombe was arrested.

She faces a separate first-degree murder charge and is expected to begin her trial on Monday.

Pechaluk took the stand in her own defense during her trial, and admitted to jurors that she had talked about killing Hoy -- but she said she could not go through with it in the end. She told the jury that she was asleep when he was killed.

Outside the courthouse, Pechaluk said it was "not nice" to have people think that she was a murderer, though she plans to move on with her life.

"It's not nice when people think things of you that aren't true ... it's not easy," she said.

Her lawyer, Peter Zaduk said Pechaluk was a "delightful human being."

"She was wrongfully charged, there's not a fibre of her being that made her capable of this."

The jury reported its verdict just before 4 p.m. on Thursday, in its fourth day of deliberations.

Early Wednesday afternoon, the jurors told Madam Justice Mary Lou Benotto that they could not reach a unanimous verdict in the case.

But the judge told them to keep trying and sent them back into deliberations.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Chris Eby