Michael Kelly shot Judie Thibault in the back of the head with a .22-calibre rifle in their garage in November 2000, he told an undercover OPP officer during a sting operation two years ago.
Kelly, who faces a first-degree murder charge in connection with the 2000 disappearance and death of Thibault, said he shot her in the garage, put a carpet in the back of his pick-up truck, rolled her body into it and drove out to the Wolf River area and dragged the body about 50 feet from the road.
There was about five to six inches of snow so the carpet slid easily; Kelly kicked some snow over the carpet and then drove back to Thunder Bay.
He tossed the gun off a bridge on Highway 11/17 into the Wolf River.
The court heard Kelly tell the undercover officer that the next day he drove Thibault’s car to the Intercity Shopping Centre parking lot and took the city bus back home.
The court, on Monday, heard Kelly recount the details of Thibault’s murder to OPP Det. Sgt. Donald Millson on Sept. 26, 2009 in a hotel room in Toronto.
Millson was posing as Donnie, a man dying of pancreatic cancer who would confess to the murder so Kelly could collect a $500,000-life insurance policy, of which Donnie would receive a cut.
When first meeting with Millson on Sept. 26, 2009, Thibault said he wasn’t responsible for Thibault’s death. Millson said without all the details, he wouldn’t have enough information to confess and the plan would not work.
They met again later in the day around 3 p.m. and after Millson said again he didn’t think the plan would work, Kelly said he was the one who shot Thibault and disposed of her body.
A video from later that evening beginning around 5:40 p.m. showed Kelly and Millson each having a beer and Millson asking what Kelly’s relationship with Thibault had been like.
Kelly said it was good until the last couple of months, adding he was under a lot of stress.
“I just lost it,” he said. “That’s the best way of describing it.”
Millson then asked if Kelly had just grabbed the gun and the bullets.
“Yup,” replied Kelly.
“I just wanted out,” he said, adding he didn’t want any of Thibault’s properties or assets and he also didn’t want her to discover he had been using one of her credit cards.
He said he had never told anybody he was responsible for her death in the nine years since it had happened.
“Not a soul,” he said.
The trial resumes Tuesday.
