It’s been a bizarre week in Southwestern Ontario courtrooms with multiple cases involving bodies found in freezers.
Chad Reu-Waters, a 48-year-old Haldimand County man, was found guilty by a jury Monday in a St. Thomas courtroom of second-degree murder and indecently offering an indignity to human remains in the death of Ashley Pereira. The 33-year-old Mississauga man was missing for 17 years before his remains were found in a discarded chest freezer tossed over a Lake Erie bluff near Port Burwell.
On Tuesday, Marcus Mapula pleaded guilty in a Sarnia courtroom to one count of offering an indignity to human remains. The frozen-solid body of his mother, Blessa Hindley, was discovered by police in a basement freezer of their shared Sarnia home during a missing person search almost exactly one year ago.
Reu-Waters was convicted after a lengthy trial due in part to his constant bragging about the killing and stashing of his former business partner, but months of silence is what finally led to the discovery of Hindley’s body in the home of Mapula, who was not found responsible for her death.
The court heard Sarnia police were called to their house on May 29, 2021, by one of Hindley’s longtime friends, as she hadn’t heard from her for multiple months. Police noticed the yard was in disarray as they knocked on the front door, with no answer.
Concerned for the well-being of the woman, who won the grand prize of the 2016 Bluewater Hospital Foundation Dream Home Lottery along with three other longtime friends originally from the Philippines, officers walked in through the rear patio door and announced their presence and reason for being there. Mapula came out from the kitchen and said his mother, a retired Sarnia realtor, according to her LinkedIn page, wasn’t there. He added he hadn’t heard from her for a while.
Police pinged her cellphone, but the carrier said there hadn’t been any activity for at least the past five months. Officers left to contact Hindley’s other family and friends, who all said they hadn’t heard from her in some time.
Some of them also said they were told by Mapula they weren’t welcome at the home.
Now working on a missing person’s case, police came back to the house to get more information from Mapula and search the home. While combing through the basement, an officer opened the lid to a freezer in the laundry room.
“A female human hand was observed,” assistant Crown attorney Aniko Coughlan said Tuesday while reading an agreed statement of facts.
Hindley’s nude, frozen body was covered in plastic.
“On top of frozen food,” Coughlan said.
There was some visible discolouration, but no obvious signs of trauma. Mapula was arrested while his mother’s body was sent – still in the freezer – to the Center of Forensic Sciences for a post-mortem examination. He found the cause of death to be complications due to his diabetes.
Along with diabetes, Hindley suffered from multiple health conditions, including dementia, Parkinson’s disease, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and had a vertebral compression fracture due to a car crash two years earlier, the court heard. She relied on her son for assistance and, although police had been called to the home in the past for family disputes as he found being a stressful caregiver, Mapula was not found responsible for her death.
As for his conviction, he wasn’t sentenced as defense lawyer Michael Moon asked the judge to order a pre-sentence report from the probation office and a forensic psychiatrist’s report under the Mental Health Act. The court did not hear if Mapula has any mental-health issues.
Justice Deborah Austin ordered the reports and instructed Mapula to go to the probation office Tuesday to get the process started.
“Yes, I understand,” said Mapula, who otherwise barely spoke.
As long as the reports are ready, he’ll be sentenced on Aug. 17.