Case Summary
Kestutis Baltrusaitis was found dead in his Inverhuron, Ontario home on September 7, 1994.1 There was no sign of a break-in. Kestutis had been shot six times at close range with a shotgun.2 He had recently separated from his wife, who “had been intimate with a former boyfriend who had been living with the couple at their home.”3 Witnesses later testified that Kestutis was “angry and upset about his wife’s infidelity … and that he was planning to cut her out of his will and pay her as little financial support as possible.”4
The police could not find the murder weapon or other forensic clues.5 Neighbours had seen a maroon car in the vicinity of the deceased’s home on September 5, 1994, as well as the week before.6 The Crown pathologist opined that Kestutis died between September 4 and 6, 1994.7
The victim’s older brother Vytautas Baltrusaitis, also known as Vito or Chuck, had “a long-standing rift” with Kestutis “dating back to their mother’s death in 1983,” based on Baltrusaitis’ belief that he had been cheated out of his fair share of the estate.8 The police questioned Baltrusaitis and found his demeanour, upon being informed of his brother’s death, to be unusually calm.9 Upon finding out that he drove a maroon vehicle, the police arrested Baltrusaitis in September 1994.10 Baltrusaitis did not apply for bail and would remain in jail for the next 9.5 years.11
The police obtained evidence that Baltrusaitis had purchased a 12 gauge shotgun from the Canadian Tire in 1988, which was contrary to his earlier statement to them.12 The police also searched Baltrusaitis’ camper, where they found shotgun cartridges.13 The Crown’s firearms and ballistics expert opined that matching features of these cartridges indicated “an excellent chance that the cartridges in the camper and the spent cartridge at the [murder] scene were produced by the manufacturer in the same production run. Notably, however, he had no information about the length of the particular production run or the number of cartridges produced in it.”14
Baltrusaitis was brought to trial in early 1996. The Crown’s case relied primarily on circumstantial evidence of the rift between the two brothers, although “[t]here was no evidence that [Baltrusaitis] had ever been violent towards his brother … nor that he had ever threatened him with violence.”15 The prosecutor adduced evidence that Baltrusaitis had surveillance equipment, that he had come to his brother’s workplace in August, and that his maroon car had been seen near his brother’s home on September 5, 1994 (one of the dates when the murder may have occurred). The Crown proffered this evidence to support a tenuous inference that Baltrusaitis was stalking his brother with the intention of killing him.16
The only direct evidence adduced to “plug potential cracks in the Crown’s circumstantial case” came from John Doe, a jailhouse informant whose identity was protected.17 Doe claimed that Baltrusaitis met with him twice while they were both in custody and confessed to killing his brother, that he was attempting to frame the victim’s wife, and that he had discarded the murder weapon in an unknown location.18 The 21-year-old had 14 prior convictions, including crimes of dishonesty such as obstructing police from performing their duties and impersonating a friend when he was arrested (to avoid being denied bail due to his record).19 Doe offered his information to police and was paid $100 to spend a day in a cell with Baltrusaitis.20 At cross-examination, the defence revealed that certain aspects of Doe’s testimony – like the number of times the deceased was shot and the use of two guns (there had been only one) – were demonstrably wrong.21
Baltrusaitis did not testify at trial, but his counsel emphasized the flaws in the Crown’s circumstantial case and pointed to the victim’s wife as a potential culprit.22 She had a financial motive to kill the victim and the opportunity to do so: she had been only 15 minutes from the crime scene on both the night of September 4 and the morning of September 5, 1994.23 Nevertheless, on May 30, 1996, the jury convicted Baltrusaitis of first degree murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison.24
Baltrusaitis appealed his conviction. The Court of Appeal held that among the trial judge’s errors was his failure to give a specific warning to the jury about the credibility of the jailhouse informer. The Court concluded that the informer’s credibility problems were “extremely serious, if not overwhelming.”25 The Court did not acquit Baltrusaitis, but instead concluded that “apart from the direct evidence of the jailhouse informant, the circumstantial evidence implicating the appellant as the killer, taken alone, is very strong and warrants a new trial.”26
This trial was held in 2004. The Crown decided not to call the jailhouse informer to testify, and the jury acquitted Baltrusaitis on July 3, 2004.27 The Crown did not appeal from this decision.
Baltrusaitis sued the provincial government on June 12, 2006.28 In 2011, a trial judge decided that he had waited too long to sue. The judge observed that “it is indeed repugnant in one sense that the plaintiff was incarcerated for almost a decade until he was ultimately acquitted,” but concluded that “this outcome is[,] however[,] a function of the operation of our system of bail.”29 Baltrusaitis’ appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal was rejected, and the Supreme Court refused to hear an additional appeal.30 Baltrusaitis was ordered to pay $8000 in costs to the government for his unsuccessful lawsuit, but the Ontario Attorney General decided not to collect the costs “given the appellant’s financial circumstances,” with the Court of Appeal stating that: “We think that is a fair position to take.”31