Man who thrashed Edmonton apartment manager declared dangerous offender
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EDMONTON — A man who beat an Edmonton apartment manager within an inch of his life nearly 10 years ago has been declared a dangerous offender. Leo Teskey will be sent to jail indefinitely for an attack on Dougald Miller in November 2000 that left him in a vegetative state.
It’s the second time Teskey has been deemed a danger to the public. The first time was after he was initially convicted of aggravated assault in the Miller case, but the Supreme Court ordered a new trial.
Teskey was convicted again in February 2009.
He already had a violent history when he beat Miller so badly that he crushed his skull, broke his nose and jaw and almost ripped an ear off.
“It is difficult to fathom what would motivate Teskey to administer such a severe and savage beating,” provincial court Judge Eric Peterson said Friday.
He took more than two hours outlining Teskey’s lengthy criminal record and reviewing testimony from expert medical experts and correctional service officials about Teskey’s mental state and behaviour.
Teskey also has a serious substance abuse problem that he doesn’t acknowledge, said the judge, and continues to deny responsibility for his actions and blames others.
He meets all the criteria to be deemed a dangerous offender, Peterson concluded. “In my view he represents a serious threat to society.”
“It’s impossible to create an environment where all the risk factors are missing ... a long-term offender designation is inadequate to monitor him ... the only fit sentence is an indeterminate sentence,” Peterson said.
Miller was walking through a building he and his wife, Lesley, owned on Nov. 21, 2000, when he came across Teskey sleeping in the hall.
While the caretaker escorted him out of the building, Teskey launched a brutal attack, crushing the man’s skull and breaking his jaw. His victim has been in a care facility ever since, unable to talk or move on his own and able to communicate only by blinking.
Teskey was first convicted of aggravated assault in 2002. The Crown succeeded in having him declared a dangerous offender in February 2005, but he appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court. In June 2007, the high court ordered a retrial on the basis that the judge had taken an unreasonable amount of time — 11 months — to deliver his written reasons for the conviction.
That decision meant that Teskey’s dangerous offender status was also overturned.
Teskey’s lengthy rap sheet includes a conviction for shooting Edmonton police Const. Mike Lakusta in 1988. He was also convicted in 1994 of tearing the penis of the two-year-old son of a girlfriend.
According to several psychologists and psychiatrists, Teskey is “virtually untreatable,” Peterson said.
He is a psychopath who “has refined his manipulative skills to the point of feigning mental illness and remorse.”
