Dad on trial for murder of 2 children; were living with him while divorce settled (Calgary, Canada)

The fathers rights crowd are always telling us that if only daddies were treated fairly, they wouldn't get mad, and um, act out. This is another case that proves what a pack of lies that is.

Dad JAMES LOUIE was an unemployed deadbeat. His "estranged" wife offered him the marital home, most of their savings, and promised not to seek child support. She even offered to take out a loan to give this deadbeat a $25,000 lump sum spousal support payment.

Not enough for abuser daddies. Must. Have. It. All. So he murdered the two kids in his home--NOTE THEY WERE STAYING WITH HIM AT THE TIME. And then he tried to kill the mother when she comes over to visit the kids.

We need to stop catering to and coddling these father terrorists. Giving in to them is only costing more lives.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Louie+trial+Mother+sensed+something+happened+children/4380414/story.html

Louie trial: Mother sensed something had happened to children

By Jason van Rassel, Calgary Herald March 4, 2011

Stuck in traffic during a snowstorm, Ying Tang said she instictively knew something was wrong with her children.

Tang took the witness stand today at the murder trial of her estranged husband, James Louie, to give her account of the day her two children, Jason, 13, and Jane, 9, were killed.

Tang said she called Louie repeatedly as she crawled along in traffic - first on a city transit bus, later in her car - but he refused to put the children on the phone and wouldn't say what happened to them.

"Did you harm them? Did you kill them?" Tang recalled asking Louie as her sense of panic grew.

"He said something like, 'You come home and see.'"

Louie had already killed the children by the time Tang arrived at the family's home and became involved in a life-and-death struggle with her estranged husband, who is also accused of trying to kill her on Nov. 27, 2009.

Louie's defence lawyers are not disputing how the children died, but said during opening submissions Louie's mental state played a role in the crimes.

Tang testified tension had been building over the terms of a separation agreement during the previous months.

Even though Tang agreed to hand over the matrimonial home and the majority of the couple's savings to Louie and not seek any child support, she testified he constantly confronted her about the terms of the agreement.

Tang, who is a professional engineer, said she even agreed to take out a loan to give the unemployed Louie a $25,000 lump-sum spousal support payment - but he still remained suspicious she would renege.

At the time, Tang had also rented a nearby home to make things easier on the children, who remained at the matrimonial home with their father.

The night before the children were killed, Tang said she visited the children at the matrimonial home, where Louie once again confronted her about the separation agreement in the basement after the children went to be.

"I told him, 'I really have bent over backwards to give you everything, everything I have to give,'" Tang said.

"He said, 'Don't push me.' I was furious when he said that."

Tang said she had to squeeze past Louie, who had been blocking the stairs and preventing her from leaving during the hour-long discussion.

Tang said she had a normal day at work the next day and nothing was out of the ordinary when she tried phoning her kids from the office at about 2 p.m.

When she got no answer or any response to subsequent voicemails, she assumed Louie took the children to a movie or they were playing with friends.

By the time she was ready to leave her downtown office at 5 p.m., Tang said she began to worry - but was momentarily relieved when Louie picked up the phone.

However, Tang said Louie's speech was slurred and she couldn't easily understand him.

"Somewhere along the line, he said, 'They're sleeping,'" which struck her as strange.

Tang said she decided to head home - but the transit bus she boarded became stuck in traffic for three hours as a snowstorm paralyzed the city.

While on the crowded bus, Tang said she made several hushed phone calls to Louie, who was still incoherent and refusing to let her speak to the children.

Although she was becoming increasingly worried, Tang said it was only after she got off the crowded bus and retrieved her car from her parents' home that she loudly confronted Louie about the children.

"He said, 'They are in my heart, you come home and see,'" she recalled.

The ominous response prompted Louie to call 911.

She said she begged the dispatcher to send police to the home, but the call taker told her police had no right to enter the home if her husband wasn't violating any court order.

When Tang arrived at the family's home on Panorama Hills Place N.W., it was in complete darkness - which was unusual, she said.

Tang said she resisted the temptation to call a neighbour for help, but was suspicious enough that she kept her cellphone in her left hand as she entered the darkened home.

She testified she went upstairs and headed first to Jane's beadroom and turned on the light.

"I thought she was sleeping. I could see under the light she was all purple," Tang said, pausing to cry and wipe her eyes with a tissue.

Tang said she thought for a moment Jane might have been bruised from Louie hitting her.

"I touched Jane's face and it was already cold. I knew I was too late," she testified.

A forensic pathologist testified on Wednesday that Jane died of asphyxiation, but couldn't determine if she was smothered or strangled.

"I backed out of the door and I said, 'What did you do? What did you do?'" Tang said.

She then saw Louie in the door of the master bedroom - with a yellow rope behind him.

Louie wrapped the rope around her neck and began to tighten it around her neck, she said.

Tang said she tried dialling 911 on her cellphone while fighting him off, but ended up tossing the phone on the floor.

As she struggled with Louie, Tang said she tried to get him to relent by saying she wanted to see Jason and even saying she was sorry.

"He wasn't budging. He kept strangling me with the rope," she said.

Meanwhile, police responding to a 911 hang-up call from Tang's cellphone went to the house.

Tang said just as she was beginning to believe she would die, she heard the officers downstairs.

"It was the best voice that I heard once I got into that house," she said.

"I grabbed my last strength and yelled out."

The officers broke down the bedroom door and pulled Louie off of Tang.

Tang said she tried using the last of her strength to crawl to Jason's bedroom to see him - but couldn't make it.

Unknown to Tang at the time was that Jason's body was on a couch in the basement. He had been asphyxiated with a rope around his neck.

An ambulance took Tang to the hospital.

"I never saw Jason in the house again," she said.

The trial before Justice Earl Wilson continues Friday with more testimony from Tang.