Drifter guilty of murder in church beating death

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— Throughout Rene Bourassa’s capital-murder trial, the gleaming brass cross he used to kill Lillian Wilson, 80, stood on a courtroom table — a mute testament to joyful memories of a country church and to an elderly woman’s ugly death.

On Thursday, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michael Ladd plunked that cross down on the lectern just before he asked a Cross County jury to convict Bourassa of capital murder.

After nearly three hours of deliberation, that’s exactly what jurors did.

They also found the 36-year-old drifter guilty of aggravated robbery, theft of property, fraudulent use of a credit card and commercial burglary.

Bourassa showed no emotion as the verdict was read.

Wilson’s family members sat in silence, faces flushed and eyes glossed with tears.

The sentencing phase, in which the death penalty remains on the table, begins today.

Bourassa attacked Wilson two years ago, when she stopped by the beloved tiny church of her childhood to sort through disaster-relief buckets for tornado victims.

Decades ago, Wilson had walked down that sanctuary aisle as a glowing, young bride.

On June 6, 2010, she lay on the floor in that same aisle, dying from blows to her head delivered by the brass cross given to the church in memory of her father, who also spent a lifetime there.

During Ladd’s closing argument, he showed slides of the crime scene.

In the photos, Wilson — wearing dress pants and a patterned shirt — lay in the aisle she once walked as a child, her feet splayed and aged hands still curled protectively around her head.

“It’s not really how you expect a life to end, is it, laying in a church like that?” Ladd mused. “The church where she spent her life, now covered in her blood.”

Prosecutors have said Bourassa — stranded at the church after his car broke down during a cross-country trip — saw an opportunity for a replacement vehicle when Wilson pulled up in her Mercury Marquis.

By that time, he’d been camping out at Central United Methodist Church for several days.

“He told us he tried four or five times to leave. And he decided he needed a ride,” Ladd said. “But Mr. Bourassa didn’t go hitchhike. He didn’t go door to door to see if somebody would help him out.”

Instead, Ladd said, Bourassa made a decision to steal her car when Wilson pulled up.

By his own admission, Bourassa grabbed the cross and hid in a nook near the main entrance, crouching and ready to strike. He hit Wilson the first time when, as she knelt to put down a wastebasket, she saw his feet.

In its closing argument Thursday, the defense described a scenario in which Bourassa — suffering from severe mood swings caused by a mental disorder — panicked when Wilson discovered him.

Bourassa didn’t attack Wilson as she puttered over the disaster buckets, noted defense attorney Danny Glover.

“It was when she came to him that this incident happened.”

After Bourassa hit Wilson, she ran for the door. He caught her, however, and pushed her to the floor. He hit her again, many times. Still, she tried to crawl away. That’s when he tipped a pew over, pinning her to the floor.

During all of this, killer and victim talked: about their families, losses, God and forgiveness.

“She told him, ‘Your mother loves you. God loves you. They forgive you.’” Glover said.

“That triggered a nerve,” the attorney continued, saying that as someone whose mother had abandoned him when he was 2 and whose father died when he was 20, Bourassa felt stung by Wilson’s words.

“You can see the rage that kind of took over him,” Glover said.

“Seventeen times,” he added, referring to the number of times Bourassa hit Wilson in the head. “That’s a person who was operating in a fit of rage.”

Glover also reminded jurors that Bourassa made no effort to cover his tracks after the attack. Instead, he drove Wilson’s car — with its distinctive “Eat More Rice” vanity plate — through several states and paid for gas with her credit card.

“He’s leaving a paper trail,” Glover said. “Is this somebody who’s thinking straight?”

Ladd disagreed, reminding jurors that Bourassa admitted that — after the final swing, when he knew Wilson wouldn’t survive — he used gloves from one of the disaster buckets to wipe away any fingerprints he may have left on the cross.

Ladd said what really disturbed him, however, was that when Wilson’s credit card kept getting declined later in his trip, Bourassa started using his own money to pay for gas and food.

“The thing that really irritated me about this case is that he had cash in his pockets,” Ladd said.

“Why didn’t he get a bus ticket?”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/13/2012

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