'I think I snapped,' accused killer of infant son says
More than two years after Christopher Lamarche allegedly murdered his six-month-old son, he re-enacted the horrific scene for a supposed crime boss.
Lamarche, 27, is on trial in Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench, charged with the second-degree murder of Jarock Humeniuk who, according to police, died on May 28, 2017, of blunt force trauma.
More than a year after the infant's death, Edmonton police launched Project Hope. The 13-month, elaborate Mr. Big undercover operation culminated with a private meeting between Lamarche and the supposed crime boss on a yacht in Vancouver.
The identity of Mr. Big, an undercover RCMP officer, is protected by a court-ordered publication ban.
On July 4, 2019, Lamarche had learned that police were supposedly poised to arrest him for killing his son. Mr. Big claimed he had obtained a medical examiner's report that designated Jarock's death as a homicide.
"The good thing about it is whenever it's an infant homicide, they have to have two medical examiner reports," Mr. Big lied. "Just so happens to be [that] our guy is the other guy."
The undercover officer claimed he had a doctor on his payroll willing to write a second report ruling the baby died of natural causes.
"So this is where we talk about telling the truth now," Mr. Big said. "I need to know what happened that night so I can call [the medical examiner] and say, 'OK this is what happened, make it ... go away.'"
At first, Lamarche claimed he couldn't remember what happened the night his son died, because he had been drinking and snorting Xanax, a prescription drug used to treat anxiety.
After coaxing from Mr. Big, Lamarche sniffed and said, "I think I snapped."
Eventually Lamarche told the undercover officer that he fed his son, changed his diaper and put him down to sleep, but the baby kept crying.
'Show me what you did'
Later the same day, Mr. Big met again with Lamarche, this time in a Vancouver apartment, and asked him to show what happened to his son using an infant-sized doll.
The second interview was audio and videotaped.
"Show me what you did so I can explain it exactly," Mr. Big urged.
Lamarche stood and picked up the doll. He shook the doll violently in the air, then took a towel meant to represent a baby blanket and placed it below the doll's face and choked the doll around the neck.
"I might have picked him up and shaken him while I was choking him," Lamarche said.
He explained to Mr. Big that he used the blanket to avoid making marks with his fingers.
He estimated the assault on his son lasted between 30 minutes and an hour.
"I think I might have gone back to choking him and once he was able to get breaths back in, he just passed out," Lamarche said.
"Do you think that's when he died right then?" Mr. Big asked.
"It could have been either that or he couldn't take the pain or the trauma," Lamarche answered."He was grey."
Lamarche said when he swaddled Jarock and put him back in his bassinet, the baby was silent.
Lamarche said he either passed out or went to sleep. When he woke up and saw his still son, he ran out of his bedroom to get his mother.
"She runs in to check on him, then she goes and wakes up my dad and then my dad tries to perform infant CPR on him," Lamarche told Mr. Big.
He casually tossed the doll back into the baby car seat, stood up and left the room.
The next morning, Lamarche was arrested at a Vancouver gas station and charged with second-degree murder.
The evidence about the undercover police operation is being heard in a voir dire, a trial within a trial. It will be up to Justice Sterling Sanderman to decide if the evidence is admissible.
