MANDEL: Cowardly killer hears children speak of Toronto mom cut down by his stray bullet
· Toronto Sun
His stray bullet cut down their beloved wife, daughter, mother and friend, but Damian Hudson initially refused to come up from the courthouse jail cells to listen to their pain.
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The husband of slain Karolina “Caroline” Huebner-Makurat had flown in from his family’s new home in British Columbia to deliver his victim impact statement in person; her elderly parents were waiting in the front row, and Superior Court Justice Michael Brown was told there would be 30 statements in all from the many who loved her. But the convicted killer who shattered their lives on July 7, 2023, had the nerve to send word that he wouldn’t be there to hear any of it.
The drug dealer only graced the courtroom with his sullen presence after the judge gently warned his lawyer that it was in his best interests to attend the sentencing hearing, where Brown will ultimately decide how long the man convicted of second-degree murder must spend in prison before he can apply for parole.
So Hudson sat there in the prisoner’s box looking bored as statement after statement described a driven, brilliant, kind woman who travelled the world, earned three degrees, even helped the Canadian Space Agency train astronauts to use the Canadarm and made — and kept — friends wherever she went.
It was only after the lunch break, when widower Adrian Makurat walked to the witness stand and began an hour-long description of the heartache he and his two young daughters continue to suffer, that the enormity of his crime seemed to finally register.
Hudson slumped forward and appeared to wipe his eyes.
Fight broke out at former ‘safe injection site’
At about 12:30 p.m. on that beautiful summer day, a violent fight between Hudson and two other drug dealers erupted on Queen St. E. outside the South Riverdale Community Health Centre where the former “safe injection site” was known as an open air market.
When Ahmed Ibrahim and his colleague tried to rob Hudson of his satchel, he opened fire, just as Huebner-Makurat was crossing the street to meet a girlfriend for a birthday lunch. One of Hudson’s bullets struck her in the back, fatally slicing through her liver, kidney and aorta.
Soon after, Makurat recalled having to tell their two little daughters that their mom was never coming home.
‘Bad thing has happened’
“’Nella, Claudia, a bad thing has happened. Mama, who we all love so much, has passed away, and we won’t be able to see her alive ever again,’ I say, as composed as I possibly can. I am unsure what, or even how, my girls will react or comprehend what I have just said,” he told the court.
“Unfortunately, Mama was doing her own thing and was passing by near some bad guys that do bad things, and she got hurt, lost a lot of blood, and isn’t alive anymore.”
From that horrific moment, he’s been both mother and father to his girls, tried to assuage their fears of “bad guys,” and gone to bed each night worried if he’s done everything he can for them.
It was all heartbreaking — but what had nearly everyone in the courtroom fighting tears was a four-minute video compilation Makurat played of his beautiful wife, their precious girls and a narration by Claudia, now 10, and Nella, now 7, telling their dad what they remember of their murdered mother.
“I was just four years old when Mama died and I don’t know why,” Nella says in her sweet voice. “I remember nothing about her but I think we made cupcakes. It’s strange not having a mom at home.”
Claudia was seven when her mother died.
“I get scared some nights and it’s hard to sleep. I wish I could see her now and for her to sleep with me,” she says.
“Mama, you will never meet my kids or watch me grow up or know who I marry. Mama, I miss you all the time,” Claudia says as photos of the girls and their beaming mom play in the background.
“When I think about her I feel sad, like I’m going to start crying and I get frustrated. Sometimes I tell myself ‘why do I have to be alive. Why is life like this?'”
Nella then tells her dad she doesn’t really remember.
“What don’t you remember?” Makurat asks gently in the video.
“What she sounds like,” she replies softly.
“And what happened to Mama?” he asks.
“She died,” Nella says.
Asked if she knows how, she quickly says “No” and when he probes further, Nella tells him, “I don’t want to remember.”
The man who stole their mother had to listen to their gut-wrenching words fill the courtroom. May they haunt him forever.
Hudson’s sentencing hearing is expected to resume next month.