Abuse, neglect present in Bridges’ childhood

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This article was published 01/04/2021 (1833 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Michael Bridges witnessed serious abuse and was neglected in his childhood, issues that ultimately followed him to the night he murdered 18-year-old Erin Chorney and buried her in another person’s grave, a Brandon courtroom heard Wednesday.

Bridges was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2002 killing of Chorney in 2005, when he was 24 years old. He was sentenced to spend 25 years in prison without parole but is applying to be allowed to ask for parole earlier under a now-repealed section of the Criminal Code called the faint hope clause.

Wednesday marked the third day of Bridges’ scheduled two-week-long hearing in Brandon Court of Queen’s Bench. To date, he has spent approximately 17 years in prison.

Bridges talked about witnessing his stepfather verbally and physically abuse his mother in his childhood during high-intensity family violence programming sessions at Stony Mountain Institution, correctional program facilitator Tara Verbling testified.

“I think he would acknowledge he has poor relationship skills … there were some things that were negative from his childhood that he was carrying and just not coping well and not behaving well and not managing his life in a healthy way,” she said under questioning from defence lawyer Ryan Amy.

“Also, issues of abandonment, of rejection that he felt from his mother. His father wasn’t present in his life, so there were issues around rejection.”

Bridges sat in the prisoners’ box flanked by two Manitoba Sheriffs officers, behind the defence table. He sat facing forward listening to testimony but at times listened with his head down.

Members of Chorney’s family sat behind the Crown attorneys’ table.

The program required Bridges and the other inmates in it to discuss issues in their families and how they played into the crimes for which they were serving time in prison, she said. They also learned healthy coping mechanisms.

When Bridges started the program, he was defensive, didn’t trust facilitators and didn’t want to speak in-depth about his feelings, Verbling said.

“(He was) talking about things in a generic kind of way, not necessarily applying it to himself, not necessarily applying it to his life … I would say probably just trying to do enough and seeing if that’s the limit, if that’s acceptable or not,” she said.

This wasn’t unusual of inmates, but as the program and years went on, he made significant progress, she testified.

Eventually, Bridges made a breakthrough during a one-on-one session with another facilitator, which is when he started opening up more and acknowledging the impact the killing had on the victim and her family.

It was then that he started drawing parallels between his childhood and the murder, Verbling said.

“He talked about witnessing family violence, again to his mom and how powerless that made him feel and how disgusted he was. He did talk about how he became … the worst thing he could think of,” she said.

“Basically, he was disgusted with himself that he was repeating that behaviour and he was becoming an abuser himself.”

During cross-examination by Crown attorney Joel Myskiw, Verbling said Bridges’ issues with rejection and feeling abandoned followed him to the night he killed Chorney. She said he couldn’t cope with the fact she was ending the relationship.

Verbling said Bridges had poor coping skills and never moved on from his childhood issues.

Myskiw also raised the fact that some people can fake emotions or fake cry.

“I’m not talking about small things, this is not him covering up a parking ticket,” Myskiw said.

“He’s capable of covering up the murder of his girlfriend. He’s able to hide the fact that he hid her body in an existing grave and no one found out. He destroyed all of the evidence of a murder and then after that, he went on to live a normal life.”

Verbling said she believed Bridges’ emotion was real in the more than a decade she spent with him.

The Crown also raised an instance where Bridges reacted poorly to being questioned by a new facilitator about the murder and his feelings. At the time, the facilitator wrote he got defensive and didn’t want to complete the exercise.

Bridges did apologize for his reaction, calling it “ridiculous,” and wanted mediation, but not until the next day. Myskiw raised Bridges’ own words in the report, where he said he got uncomfortable when put on the spot and felt rushed in the conversation.

It’s an example of where he ran into a challenging situation but still reacted poorly, the Crown said.

“In this example, he reacted poorly and then apologized later the next day,” he said.

Basil Lewin, a building service technician at Stony Mountain Institution, also testified for the defence. He said he worked with Bridges in the prison’s carpentry program and added Bridges was “almost a model prisoner.”

The faint hope clause was repealed from the Criminal Code in December 2011, but Bridges can still apply under it as he was convicted before it was removed.

The clause, otherwise known as S.745.6 of the Canadian Criminal Code, was a statutory provision that allowed offenders sentenced to life imprisonment with a “parole eligibility period of greater than 15 years to apply for early parole once they have served 15 years.”

The hearing is scheduled to continue today as the defence continues to call witnesses to testify.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

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