Crown rejects Edmonton man’s plea of guilty to assisted suicide in 2006 domestic slaying

The Crown prosecutors in Edmonton Alberta rejected a plea bargain by Noel Lavery, to the charge of assisted suicide in the smothering death of his wife, Sherry Lavery, on September 27, 2006.

The Crown prosecutor made the correct decision by rejecting a plea of assisted suicide. 

The media reports indicate that Noel Lavery smothered his wife. Assisted suicide would be the correct charge if Sherry Lavery had killed herself with the "assistance" of Noel Lavery, but since he smothered his wife the charge of second-degree murder reflects the fact that he appears to have caused the death of his wife.

An article written by Alexandra Zabjek and published in the Edmonton Journal stated:

When police arrived at the Lavery house in Mill Woods that September night, they found a 78-year-old man, crying and cradling his dead wife, who lay on the couple’s bed. He admitted to smothering her.

A constable remembered that scene Monday during the second-degree murder trial of Edmonton resident Noel Lavery, now 83. His wife, Sherry Lavery, ... was also an alcoholic, whose addiction had ruled and all-but ruined her family in the months before her death.

 Leigh Makarewicz, the daughter of Lavery told the court that:

She cleaned her mother, put her in bed and went home. The phone rang just before midnight. It was Lavery (her father) who said he was calling the police.

“He said that he’d killed her and that he was phoning the police.”

The other option would have been for the prosecutor to have charged Lavery with manslaughter. We will follow this trial.