GUILTY Canada - Holly Jones, 10, Toronto, ON, 12 May 2003

Holly case date set
Accused killer's preliminary starts May 31

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2003/12/20/292516.html

http://hollyjones.ca/

This was not far from us... maybe a half hour away

Poor Holly was found in gym bags and luggage weighted down off Toronto Island in Lake Ontario.

The man charged in the killing a year ago of 10-year-old Toronto schoolgirl Holly Jones has waived his right to a preliminary hearing, one of his lawyers said Wednesday.

Michael Briere, who has been charged with first-degree murder, made the decision after consulting with his defence team, said lawyer Gregory Leslie. "Mr. Briere came to the conclusion and decided that to spare the family hearing the evidence over a period of a month to six weeks at a preliminary inquiry, that he would waive the preliminary inquiry," Leslie said.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Law/2004/05/12/456984-cp.html

I hope he burns in hell...since there is no death penalty here in Canada I cant say I hope they fry him...but I hope justice is served...prison style

Michael Briere was a software programmer with no criminal record when he watched child *advertiser censored* one drizzly evening in May 2003 - and within minutes, he'd snatched a 10-year-old girl from the street and then sexually assaulted, strangled and dismembered her in a crime he described as "cruel, inhuman and nightmarish."

Briere, 36, pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder in the sex slaying of Holly Jones.

His plea came a year after DNA evidence from a soda-pop can he tossed into a streetside recycling bin almost a month after Holly's abduction linked him to the murder of the cheerful schoolgirl who lived just blocks from his home.

The Montreal native wept in court as he apologized for acting out on what was described as his "dark secret" - his fantasy to have sex with a child. Holly's mother, Maria Jones, bowed her head and sobbed through most of his remarks.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...0040617/ca_pr_on_na/crime_holly_jones_hearing

Very good and long article about Holly's family on this sad 10th anniversary..
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...ago_brought_a_toronto_community_together.html

"Maria Jones is staring at her daughter’s face.

She is standing in front of a larger-than-life mural, a painted likeness of a studio portrait taken shortly before 10-year-old Holly Jones vanished from her west-end neighbourhood and never came home.

On a sunny April day, Maria, a petite, 52-year-old woman with a chiseled physique and straw blond hair, is visiting the leafy green Perth Ave. Parkette, just around the corner from her house, for the first time in nearly a decade.

She bends to rescue a small teddy bear that has fallen face-first in the dirt.

This motion of adjusting memorials left for her daughter is second nature now.

From the moment Holly went missing on May 12, 2003, mourners began to leave a mountain of flowers, teddy bears and stone angels outside her front door in her Junction neighbourhood in Toronto’s west end. Maria would sit cross-legged almost every day surrounded by the mementos — tidying them, pressing some delicately to her lips."

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...ago_brought_a_toronto_community_together.html

"The little girl was always at her mother’s side. When Maria gardened in the backyard, Holly asked to join. Maria gave her a little patch of earth to call her own. The space of crimson budding trees is now lovingly decorated with hanging crystals and mirrors that make lights dance in the sun, and countless stone angels.

On a recent spring day, one cherub lies sprawled in the soil, the leafy green stems of yet-blossoming forget-me-nots sprouting through a chubby-armed embrace.

Ten years on, those people touched by Holly in life and death — her family, a police detective, a Crown attorney, her childhood best friend and strangers — are still learning how to grieve.

This is how Holly brought them together".