New trial ordered for ex-pastor convicted of wife’s death
Posted September 15, 2017 3:51 pm.
Last Updated September 15, 2017 4:14 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Court of Appeal for Ontario has ordered a new trial for a former pastor who was convicted in 2014 of killing his pregnant wife.
Philip Grandine was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years in prison for drugging his 29-year-old wife, Anna “Karissa” Grandine, with lorazepam, causing her to drown a bathtub in their Scarborough home on Oct. 17, 2011.
Grandine appealed his conviction on the grounds Judge Robert Clark introduced a new theory to the jury in answer to a question about how Karissa ended up in the bathtub. The jury could use this theory not introduced at trial to convict Grandine even if they didn’t find he administered the drugs.
The court of appeal agreed the jury was struggling with the chain of events on the night Karissa died and sought clarity as to whether Grandine had to be physically involved in putting his wife in the bathtub.
The appeal panel agreed the judges answer “compromised” the trial’s fairness by “introducing a new theory in the case that the accused had no opportunity to respond to” and ordered a new trial on the charge of manslaughter.
“The court of appeal decision corrects a legal error that was committed by the trial judge by introducing a theory of liability that was not part of the case against Mr. Grandine,” Grandine’s lawyer Michael Lacy explained.
“The decision today will be difficult for the family and friends of the deceased to accept. But it is the legally correct decision because the conviction was tainted by fundamental unfairness.”
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Grandine was originally charged with first-degree murder.
The Crown had accused Grandine of plotting to kill his wife in order to continue an extramarital affair with his friend’s wife, a parishioner at his church. Grandine was on the phone with his mistress the night his wife drowned.
The couple had been married for three years and Karissa was expecting their first child.
Days before her death, Karissa felt unwell and went to the emergency room with symptoms of vomiting and confusion. Lorazepam was found in her blood work — a drug she had not been prescribed.
The Crown’s theory in the trial was that Grandine secretly drugged Karissa with lorazepam and then either helped her into the tub or allowed her to take a bath and then waited for her to pass out and drown or actually held her underwater.
The defence argued that Grandine was not home at the time of his wife’s death and that Karissa had self-administered the drugs and accidentally drowned, or committed suicide.
During the trail, the jury heard that while in a marriage counselling session Grandine admitted to an interest in online pornography. It was agreed the couple would place a block on the home computer so he could not access porn. Karissa had control of the blocked sites.
The home computer revealed the porn block had been disabled shortly before the 911 call on the night of Karissa’s death.
Grandine has been out on bail pending this appeal since Aug. 2015.
