Victims of evil Canadian hot tub killer, Aren Pearson, were terrified to face him in court even before he murdered his girlfriend on a remote Scottish island.
Pearson, 41, was convicted ofstabbing Albertan Claire Leveque, 24, in a hot tub at his mother’s home on the remote Shetland Islands on Feb. 11, 2024.
At his trial in Edinburgh, the court heard his 911 call admitting the murder and claiming he stabbed Leveque “in the heart, stomach, face, neck and back.” He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Now, it has emerged that Pearson was a serial domestic abuser in Canada,The Scottish Sunreports. Leveque’s loved ones told Postmedia, “other victims were too scared to face him in court.”
“We’ve had two families reach out. Both tell awful stories of domestic violence,” family friend and lawyer Lauren Proteau told Postmedia in 2024. “And both were terrified to go ahead with a trial. They came forward but did not want to continue because our legal system is so flawed — the entire onus is put on victims’ shoulders.”
‘BOTH WERE TERRIFIED’
Proteau painted a picture of Leveque as a vulnerable young woman who became a prisoner in the Shetlands with control freak Pearson monitoring her every move. The couple had moved to Scotland about five months before the murder.
They lived with the killer’s mom.
“Claire was so deep in the cycle of domestic violence that she was terrified to even ask for help,” Proteau said. “If she had asked her dad, Clint, he’d have got on a plane within seconds.”
Pearson and Leveque met in Edmonton
‘VULNERABLE AND ISOLATED’
Glasgow High Court Judge Lord Paul Arthurson addressed Pearson at his sentencing on Oct. 16.
“She was vulnerable and isolated. In the words of your late mother, uttered in the course of a 999 call made by her at about 4:55 p.m. on 11 February 2024 following your murder of Ms. Leveque, she was ‘just a lovely young girl,’ ” Arthurson told Pearson.
“You yourself joined that 999 call on 11 February 2024, stating to the operator, ‘I’ve just killed my girlfriend in the hot tub in the garage at Ringville. I stabbed her about 40 times, in the heart, chest, face, neck and back. … I just killed my stupid c**t of a girlfriend. I definitely killed her. To make sure, I drowned her after I stabbed her … and beat her the f*** up,'” the judge said.
The judge claimed that Pearson engaged in victim-blaming to try and weasel out of what was coming for him.
“Despite the post-mortem toxicology results indicating only a moderate level of alcohol in Ms. Leveque’s blood and urine, you described her as ‘guzzling’ alcohol and subsequently urinating in a bucket such was her level of intoxication, on your account. You described her then drinking brake fluid and rolling around in her own urine. Such abusive and derogatory remarks about your victim continued throughout your evidence,” Arthurson said.
‘FERAL BUTCHERY’
“This malicious, vindictive and wholly fabricated account suggests, certainly to me, that you have sought to continue to humiliate your victim, after her death, even in this courtroom in the presence of her grieving family.”
He added: “This was a sustained episode of feral butchery.”
Meanwhile, filmmakers are planning to tell Leveque’s horrific story in a two-part true crime documentary.Murder in Shetland: The Killing of Claire Levequeis scheduled to air on the U.K.’s Channel 5 next year.
@HunterTOSun
