Canadian colonel makes chilling confession

A Canadian court on Wednesday heard the chilling confession of a once high-ranking military officer's spree of sexual assaults, murders and burglaries of women's homes.

Colonel Russell Williams, 47, a married pilot who once flew the jet used to ferry Canada's prime minister as well as the British royal family on a visit, was convicted this week of the 86 crimes.

On Wednesday, the court saw his videotaped confession during a police interrogation.

In it, he appears poised in jeans and a striped shirt, arms crossed and chewing gum.

"It's hard to believe," he says when he finally realizes that he has been caught.
Police told him they matched tracks outside one murder victim's home to his Nissan Pathfinder's tire treads at a roadside checkpoint days before they asked him to come to Ottawa police headquarters on a Sunday afternoon in February.

A boot print at the scene also matched those Williams wore to the police interview. Police were now busy searching his home in Ottawa and his cottage in Tweed, Ontario, as well as his SUV, they told him.

"I want to minimize the impact on my wife," says Williams. "So, how do we do that?"

"You start by telling the truth," replies Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sergeant Jim Smyth.

Andy Lloyd, the brother of a young woman Williams brutally raped and murdered, told reporters it was difficult hearing in court how she died "from the devil himself."

Wearing a bracelet with some of Jessica's ashes around his wrist, he said he thinks about his sister every day, her demise, and misses her terribly.

"My dad proudly served 25 years in the Royal Canadian Navy," he added. Their father would be "mortified" that a Canadian soldier could have done this.

Earlier, a half dozen victims' family members read statements in court describing the impact of Williams crimes on their lives, "the pain" of losing a daughter, a sister, a niece.

"My world has fallen apart," said Jessica's aunt.

Police arrested Williams in February for the disappearance and death of 27-year-old Lloyd, last heard from the previous month.

He was later charged with the November 2009 murder of a female corporal under his command at the Trenton military base, as well as in two home invasions in which women were confined and sexually assaulted, and an additional 82 counts of break-and-enter and attempted break-and-enter in Ottawa, Belleville and Tweed.

A stash of women's undergarments taken by police from Williams' Ottawa residence was linked to the burglaries near his home and job.

Police also seized hundreds of photographs and videos of the sexual assaults and murders from his home computer.

Williams commanded Canada's busiest air force base, the 437 Squadron in Trenton, east of Toronto, for more than a year prior to his arrest. Previously he was in charge of Canada's secretive Camp Mirage in Dubai.

He pleaded guilty to his crimes on Monday after cooperating with police in their investigation and is expected to be sentenced on Thursday. He faces life in prison, with no possibility of parole for at least 25 years.

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