For almost 19 years, Nicola Puddicombe has denied her responsibility in the murder of her boyfriend of 11 years, Dennis Hoy.
On Thursday, during week two of her faint hope hearing, Puddicombe, who is serving a life sentence after being found guilty of first degree murder in 2009, told a jury she is responsible.
Puddicombe testified Thursday that she told her then-lover Ashleigh Pechaluk to kill Hoy, her partner of 11 years. It is the first time she has publicly acknowledged her role in the murder.
On Friday, Dr. Anne Dimito, a psychologist at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, told the jury that Puddicombe admitted responsibility to her about a month ago. Dimito said Puddicombe told her, “I own that I told Ashleigh to do it,” but provided few other details.
Puddicombe testified she and Pechaluk had fallen in love after meeting at a Loblaws store where Puddicombe was a manager and Pechaluk, 12 years her junior, was an employee.
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She told the jury she tried to maintain a polygamous relationship with both Hoy and Pechaluk, but eventually agreed to a plan “concocted” by Pechaluk to kill Hoy.
She said Pechaluk first suggested poisoning after Puddicombe returned from a 2006 trip to Las Vegas with Hoy. Telling Pechaluk “he had done stuff” to her, Pechaluk suggested Puddicombe should put something in his food. “Implying poison or something,” Puddicombe explained.
“I said, ‘Are you joking?’ She said nobody will find out, there are so many poisons you there you can’t detect. I said, ‘You can’t do that.’ She suggested it a few times, I kept saying no,” Puddicombe told the jury.
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According to her testimony, Pechaluk then proposed having Hoy beaten as he left work or home and later suggested beating him to death with a baseball bat.
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She testified she was afraid to leave Hoy because he told her he was involved in a biker club and was abusive and controlling, though the Crown later challenged those claims and said there was no evidence he was in a biker gang.
Three weeks later, on Oct. 26, 2007, Puddicombe said they finally carried out the plan.
She said she gave Hoy a back rub until he fell asleep, then alerted Pechaluk that “you can follow through.” She said she turned on the shower to create noise.
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Before she finished her cigarette, she said, Pechaluk told her “it’s done.”
Puddicombe said she saw an axe on the bed and blood in the room, telling the jury Pechaluk told her she “didn’t use the sharp end of the axe. I just beat him with it.”
Puddicombe said she then went into her roommate’s bedroom and called 911. She told the operator she was in the shower and didn’t know what had happened to Hoy.
She agreed with Huberman who asked her if that was her role in the plan.
Police arrested both women, but Pechaluk was later acquitted after her confession was ruled inadmissible because officers failed to read her rights.
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Huberman asked whether Puddicombe was mad about the acquittal.
“I wasn’t mad. She had confessed. I coerced a young girl to do something that’s horrendous and so I live with that,” she said, wiping back tears.
Puddicombe testified she had purchased the axe for a camping trip she and Pechaluk had gone on earlier in the year.
Puddicombe said she couldn’t believe that Pechaluk had gone through with it and went to the police station that night before being released.
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“They had informed that Ashleigh had confessed to the murder and then they just let me go. It was like 2:00 in the morning,” she said, explaining she didn’t tell police what had actually happened because Pechaluk told her to stick to the story.
She said she didn’t attend Hoy’s funeral because police told her not to, but contacted Hoy’s employer about benefits to pay for his funeral because a detective told her “that his parents weren’t willing to pay.”
Puddicombe testified that’s when she found out he had a $250,000 insurance policy and she was the sole beneficiary. “I was taken aback,” she said, because Hoy had told her he was making his mother the beneficiary.
Puddicombe said she kept in touch with Pechaluk by visiting her several times in jail.
Earlier in the day, Puddicombe cried as she recounted childhood trauma, surviving Hodgkin’s disease after high school and being kicked out by her mother.
She also spoke about a stable, monogamous relationship she is currently in with another incarcerated woman.
Asked how she felt about being convicted, Puddicombe said, “I deserved it. I knew I encouraged her. I told her to do this. She would have never killed him if it wasn’t for me.”
The faint-hope hearing continues.
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