Love triangle axe killer admits responsibility for first time

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Ax murderer Nicola Puddicombe cries and cries – for herself. And certainly not for the boyfriend she conspired to beat to death.

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Finally, after 19 years of proclaiming her innocence, she publicly admits for the first time that she incited her lover to kill Dennis Hoy, her partner of 11 years.

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And with that late admission, a woman serving a life sentence for first-degree murder made a tearful appearance before a jury for the chance to apply for parole sooner than the minimum 25 years – a “faint hope” hearing abolished for lifers after 2011.

The tears came mainly as Puddicombe, 52, was asked by lawyer Mitchell Huberman to talk about her childhood (her dad beat her mum after they moved here from the UK), her diagnosis and difficult treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma at 19, and alleged abuse by Hoy.

Puddicombe repeated many of the arguments rejected at trial and subsequent appeals – that she was terrified of Hoy, a 36-year-old GO Transit special constable, because he beat her and told her he belonged to the Hells Angels and would hurt her family if she ever tried to leave.

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Puddicombe claims she was shocked to learn at trial that Hoy was not a bikie at all.

Puddicombe, then a Loblaws customer service manager, met with a Loblaws employee. Ashley Pechaluk, 12 years her junior, said in 2005 and the summer of 2006 that her new secret lover was pushing her to kill Hoy so they could be together.

Puddicombe said she initially refused but eventually told her: “Let's do it.”

And why? She's tired of being in the middle of a complicated love triangle.

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“My life was in turmoil. I couldn't make him happy. He was constantly yelling at me about something. I had just gotten a couple of puppies and he was yelling about me having puppies. I was like chaos. In my mind, I didn't know how to end her and I didn't know how to end him. I didn't know how to make things better for him. I tried everything. I was exhausted.”

What a terribly lame excuse for killing an innocent man.

On the night of Oct. 27, 2006, she said she knocked on Pechaluk's door to tell her Hoy was sleeping. She then went to the bathroom, filled the bathtub, lit a cigarette, and sat on the toilet to wait. A few minutes later, she said, Pechalyuk told her that “everything is ready.”

Sadluck didn't want her to look, but Puddicombe opened the door and was surprised to see an ax on the blood-soaked bed, although the plan was to use a bat. She didn't see Hoy's body, but “I thought I heard him gurgling,” she recalled.

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After she called 911, first responders found Hoy's naked body in her bed, his head crushed with six blows from the blunt end of an ax purchased by Puddicombe.

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According to her, the ax was intended for a hike.

Pechalyuk confessed to the murder, but was acquitted after her plea was rejected due to a violation of the Charter. After learning that Puddicombe had become pregnant while she was in prison, her devoted lover became the star witness for the prosecution at her murder trial.

Puddicombe says she accepted the first-degree murder conviction – despite a growing number of appeals – and life in prison.

“I felt like I deserved it. I knew in my heart and in my mind that I supported her. I told her to do it. She would never have killed him if it wasn't for me,” she told the court. “I forced a young girl to do something terrible, and so I live with it.”

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Crown prosecutor Alice Bradstreet accused her of manipulating a vulnerable, driven, much younger woman by feeding her lies about Hoy's abuse in a calculated year-long campaign to turn her into a killer with promises of forever.

“You used this story of abuse as a tool to control Ashley; you persuaded, incited, encouraged Ashley to kill Dennis,” she said.

Her voice became increasingly hoarse as the day went on, and Puddicombe insisted it was her friend's idea.

Despite Puddicombe's denials, Bradstreet also accused her of knowing full well that she was Hoy's beneficiary on his life insurance, and four days after the murder she tried to profit from it.

“You didn't want Dennis dead because he was abusive. You wanted him dead because of the money,” the prosecutor said.

No, no, she insisted.

But if Puddicombe manipulated his girlfriend into killing, is she now manipulating the jury into releasing her early?

The hearings are ongoing.

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