Hughes found guilty of second-degree murder

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This article was published 10/12/2021 (1746 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Robert Hughes has been found guilty of killing his wife before their east-end house exploded in 2019. 

The jury of 12 people found him guilty of second-degree murder after nearly two weeks of trial in the Brandon Court of Queens Bench. Hughes, 65, pleaded not guilty to the charge. 

Their deliberations began at approximately 3:30 p.m. on Thursday and wrapped up just after 1 p.m. Friday. 

Hughes stood silently as the jury foreperson read the verdict while flanked by defence lawyers Saul Simmonds and Adam Hodge. Simmonds put his arm on Hughes’ shoulder when the verdict was read. 

Several members of the audience could be heard crying once the verdict was announced. 

The family declined to comment after court on Friday. 

Outside the Brandon Court House, Simmonds said Hughes was feeling “broken” and sorely disappointed. 

“It is clear from his evidence that it was an extremely difficult process for him to go through and it’s going to take some time for him to process today’s decision,” Simmonds said. 

“Obviously these were very, very difficult circumstances for him and trying to get through this has been difficult for everybody concerned.” 

Over six days of trial, the court heard from various witnesses, including firefighters, police officers, neighbours, a DNA expert and a pathologist. Hughes testified in his own defence on Tuesday. 

On Oct. 22, Brandon firefighters responded to the east-end property after it blew up. When they arrived, the walls of the house were blown out and Manitoba Hydro had to turn off the natural-gas line. 

Brandon Police Service Const. Travis Foster said on the first day of the trial Betty was found inside the destroyed house with a multitude of cuts and lying in a pool of blood. 

Firefighters then saw Hughes with a noose around his neck in the destroyed house, the court heard. He was transported to the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre, where he was arrested by Brandon police on Oct. 25. 

Pathologist Dennis Rhee testified Betty had more than a dozen injuries when she died, but the ultimate cause of death was blood loss from an 11.7-centimetre wound that extended from her eyebrow across her temple and into her ear. 

He estimated Betty would have died of blood loss minutes after the cut. He was unable to tell where the person who inflicted the wound was standing, or how it happened, just that it was caused by a “weapon.” 

Hughes took to the witness stand in his own defence Tuesday morning. He alleged there was a prolonged struggle with his wife in the kitchen of their house, which he said was like “World War III.” At the time, the two were in a strained relationship. 

He said Betty grabbed a knife at one point and he was trying to control her arms. Eventually, the two ended up on the kitchen floor and Betty was dead. 

Hughes testified he then wanted to take his own life, so he tampered with a gas line in the basement with the intention to breathe it in and die. The gas filled the room, though, and exploded after catching on a pilot light. 

The defence and Crown offered two drastically different versions of what happened in the kitchen of the Queens Avenue East house. 

Simmonds argued there was a struggle between Betty and Hughes that ended with Betty dead. He said the accused had no intention of killing or harming his wife. 

Crown attorney Christian Vanderhooft argued Hughes deliberately killed her.

Justice Scott Abel said he is required to impose the mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison after Hughes was convicted of second-degree murder. A sentencing hearing to determine how many years in prison Hughes will have to serve before he is eligible for parole will be held at a later date.

» dmay@brandonsun.com 

» Twitter: @DrewMay_