Convicted of murder in second jury trial
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Updated: August 12, 2009 11:36 AM
The second jury trial for a Mission man charged with killing his wife in 2002 has resulted in a first-degree murder conviction.
Jamie Robert Kokotailo was convicted last Thursday in the B.C. Court of Appeal in New Westminster for the fatal stabbing of Lori Lynn Elaine Kokotailo on Dec. 1, 2002.
The conviction comes with an automatic life sentence with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
Kokotailo was previously convicted on May 28, 2005 in B.C. Supreme Court, but that conviction was overturned and a new trial was ordered.
The appeal was issued on the grounds that the first trial judge erred in two of his instructions to the jury.
The second trial ran from June 1 to Aug. 6.
Crown counsel Wayne Norris said the prosecution relied on the same strategy it used in the first trial.
“Our theory was that it was a planned and deliberate murder,” he said.
The defence maintained Kokotailo was provoked by Lori and didn’t know what he was doing at the time of the stabbing.
“Had they (the defence) been successful and the jury had accepted in law what provocation means ... it would have reduced the charges to manslaughter,” Norris said.
A manslaughter conviction would have been akin to saying the murder was accidental, Norris said.
Kokotailo admitted he was responsible for the death of his wife of three and a half years, Lori, 38, but testified he couldn’t remember the slaying.
Lori had been stabbed nine times in the bedroom of the couple’s Tanaka Terrace home in Mission.
The incident was witnessed by two of her four daughters.
Lori was killed the night she returned from Seattle, where she was having an affair that Kokotailo said he had found out about the day before through an e-mail he discovered.
The Crown alleged that Kokotailo had known about the affair for several days prior to the incident, and had planned the murder.
Duct tape, a baseball bat and the murder weapon found in the bedroom were pointed to as evidence of his intentions.
Three of Lori’s daughters were in court for the second trial and were there for the verdict.
“They were in tears. It was a huge, huge relief for them,” Norris said.
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