MANDEL: Bathtub Girl killer, now 37, wants 'second chance'
Once dubbed the Bathtub Girl killer, she's spent more than eight years in her uphill quest to be licensed as an Ontario lawyer – and she's tired of waiting.
Convicted as a youth of drowning her alcoholic mom when she was 15, 'A.B.' went before the Law Society Tribunal this week and asked to be immediately licensed due to 'inordinate delay' and abuse of process by the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) as they seek a 'good character' hearing.
'The LSO should do the right thing and let me proceed directly to licensing. This would stop LSO's eight years (and counting) of wasting taxpayer and annual lawyer fee monies. This would ensure the YCJA (Youth Criminal Justice Act) is respected, so others with a youth record have a real second chance when they have put in the work to improve themselves – like I have,' wrote the law graduate, her identity protected under the YCJA.
'The YCJA (Youth Criminal Justice Act) exists to give youths a second chance without being punished for their mistakes made as children. I was 15 at the time of the offence and am now 37. Instead,' she wrote in her affidavit. 'the LSO is trying to legalize destroying the reputation of any youth before the youth can even begin their career as a lawyer. That is malicious and improper.'
The infamous murder has been the subject of a book by the late great Bob Mitchell as well as a movie adaptation.
On Jan. 18, 2003, after months of carefully planning their plot and giddily discussing it online with friends, the sisters – 16 and 15 at the time – plied their alcoholic mom with vodka and slipped her Tylenol 3s laced with codeine.
As their 43-year-old mother lay sleepily in her bath, the older girl put on gloves and gently – to avoid telltale bruising – held her underwater for four minutes until she stopped twitching.
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They almost got away with it. But flush with $133,000 in insurance money, the sisters couldn't stop blabbing about their crime. And a year after the drowning was ruled an accident, one of their friends went to Peel Regional Police.
Both girls were sentenced to the maximum youth term of 10 years – six in secure custody. A.B. was paroled after four years due to her good behaviour and completed her sentence in 2014.
To her credit, she completed an undergrad degree, went to law school, articled and passed her bar exams. But the single mom is still waiting to be called to the bar.
In her 2016 application, she responded to a question that an Ontario judge would later rule was 'misleading and unlawful' – and disclosed her youth record for murder. That triggered an LSO 'good character' investigation, a request for her youth records in 2019 and her referral to a hearing in 2020 that's been delayed by legal wrangling over guaranteeing her anonymity.
She went to court in 2023 to revoke her permission for the LSO to access her youth record after she complained their investigator used it to reveal her identity and conviction to witnesses as she probed them with 'gossipy' questions.
In August 2024, Justice Bruce Duncan – the same judge who presided over her trial and sentencing – agreed and ruled the law society has no business even considering her past since her youth conviction is considered erased.
'AB is conclusively deemed never to have committed the offence,' Duncan said in his ruling at the time.
While the Law Society is appealing, A.B. brought her motion Thursday to skip the good character hearing completely – a move strongly opposed by the Law Society.
'The need to assess character is significantly heightened when an applicant has been involved in first-degree murder – the most serious of crimes,' LSO lawyer Nadia Musclow told the tribunal. 'A significant amount of the delay in this matter is attributable to the applicant herself and the various steps she has taken to avoid the licensing hearing.'
It's a charge A.B. denies, accusing the legal regulator of 'fighting her every step of the way' so she'll finally give up – something she vows not to do.
'Had I known that waiting for licensing would be like Waiting for Godot, I would have never applied to be a lawyer,' she wrote. 'That is a sad message for LSO to send to those with a youth record, who have valuable and unique experiences to contribute to the practice of law.'
The tribunal has reserved its decision.
mmandel@postmedia.com
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