What is your emergency oh my wife’s not breathing my wife I just woke up my wife’s dead Donna Jones was the outgoing ever smiling member of a large circle of close friends she was a loving compassionate family woman who just wanted to be loved back until she met Mark Hut she loved my spaghetti she loved it to death what kind of Life did this woman have four years of Relentless torment slowly drove her into isolation before 12 days of unimaginable torture would eventually end her life hello and welcome to the Little Shop of
crime my name is Steve and in store today is a story that won’t be easy to listen to it’s barbaric so proceed with caution and this case isn’t very widely publicized outside of Ottawa at least so it should be new to most of you and honestly it’s a story that deserves to be told it’s it’s incredibly Sad But at the very least it could serve as a valuable warning to others this is 12 days of Hell the heartbreaking case of Donna Jones today’s tragic tale takes place in Canada’s capital and fourth largest city Ottawa situated in Southern Ontario
ottawa’s national dish is poutine its main religion is hockey and it has a maple fueled population of just over a million at the last count Donna Ellen Jones was born there on Christmas day in 1975 the younger sister to Jennifer and later the older sister to Derek born 17 months later Donna’s upbringing was shaped by her parents James her father was a hot-headed man traditional the kind of guy who believed a wife should honor her husband her mother Irina on the other hand was Lively and generous much like Donna herself
like many young women Donna was burdened by self-consciousness mostly about her weight and a lazy eye but despite her inner battles she was really popular she had loads of friends who described her as things like absolute Sunshine a bowl full of jelly prone to spontaneous dancing she always had a smile on her face in fact you’d be hard pressed to find a photograph that didn’t show her absolutely beaming but it wasn’t all fun she had her head screwed on as well she put herself through college and university and went on to Exel in a civil service
job with the Canadian food inspection agency she was earning good money helping friends who needed it and she lived with her parents until 2005 carefully saving until she managed to pay off all her student debts and eventually at the age of 29 she bought herself this little house in the Bay Shore area of Ottawa Donna was that person that every group of friends needs the one who organized the fun times going for dinner playing sports or skating along the Frozen canals in winter but despite being in enormously social her inner
demons cursed her with anxiety and when it came to romance she was unmistakably shy she told her therapists that she was terrified of being alone that the only thing missing in her life was a man she just wanted to be loved that is until the summer of 2005 when a mutual friend introduced Donna to Mark Hut who played on the same baseball team he was a roofer of the same age a man with a troubled upbringing but he was as Donna would insist turning his life around things moved very quickly for the couple she soon moved him into the new
house she’d saved so eagerly to by but the glaring red flags began to appear almost as fast mark would call Donna every 15 minutes if she was out with friends friends who would overhear their conversations on the phone when he’d shout at Donna call her all sorts of hideous names in fits of jealous rage and when they called her at home they’d hear the unmistakable click on the line as Mark picked up a second receiver to listen in she always made excuses for him always had to dash off from social Gatherings to get home she started to become more
and more withdrawn less available to meet with friends and family then the physical injuries began to appear bruises Cuts hand-shaped marks on her skin that she always had an excuse for she’d walked into something fallen over or been bitten by one of Mark’s dogs then in 2006 on a trip to Disney World the couple fought the entire time but Donna still said yes when Mark proposed to her there months later when she found her perfect dress in Tiara she called her new fiance super excited he just wanted to know if she’d done the
laundry and after the engagement the abuse still escalated Donna slowly stopped looking after herself she wasn’t doing her hair or dressing well for work she’d stop caring a month before their wedding the following year instead of a bachelorette party her friends staged an intervention where they each read a heartfelt personalized speech to Donna begging her not to marry him and instead go to a shelter they’ arranged for her but the intervention failed in desperation her friends pulled out of the wedding even
her bridesmaids but she went ahead with it anyway her brother Derek said they used to speak every day but she grew more and more withdrawn on a random visit to the house he noticed she’d been buying Mark expensive toys a new truck an ATV a pool table snowmobile there were punch holes all over the walls of the house he said that after after the marriage Donna became cold suspicious fearful she wasn’t herself she was a drone she seemed dazed almost medicated four years of abuse had turned her infectious smile into a vacant stare and he noticed the
physical injuries getting even worse she had a broken wrist that needed surgical pins just to hold it together apparently she’d slipped on some rocks by the hot summer of 2009 Donna was wearing turtlenecks long sleeves and heavy makeup just to the cigarette Burns and evergrowing list of other injuries she now weighed only 101 had a split lip that just wouldn’t heal a limp that never went away and burns on her hands that were of course the result of a cooking mishap Mark told Donna repeatedly that he would end his own life if she ever
left him he was dependent on her he’ declared bankruptcy shortly after moving into her house and she began to pay off his debts whilst creating her own buying him his expensive gifts taking over his vehicle payments and paying his medical bills he bled her dry completely used her up Mark Hut abused his wife physically psychologically and financially Donna’s performance at work had slipped too her shifts were interrupted by frequent angry calls from Mark and her boss was worried about her in late November of 2009 she called him
sick with a cold but he knew something wasn’t right he made a call to police to voice his concerns but it was never followed up and so he decided to Stage another intervention at work the next time she came into the office away from Mark but there was no next time what is your Emergen oh my stop breathing my wife I just woke up my wife’s dead make sure she’s on a firm flat surface on her back she is open her mouth bying her head back slightly if you see a foreign object gently remove it there’s nothing in there
excellent a police officer arrived in minutes and the first thing he noticed was an open window this struck him was odd in the depths of a Canadian winter but when he entered the house he quickly realized why it was a vain attempt to mask the pungent decomposing stench an odor he described as acrid sickly and unlike anything he’d ever encountered before in the basement he found Donna’s body in a T-shirt and soiled pajama bottoms lying on a makeshift mattress made from a pile of dirty couch pillows a first responder was horrified at what
she saw 40% of Donna was covered in third and fourth degree burns Burns that were putrid and weeping with infection so severe that her t-shirt stuck to the septic wounds as the medic lifted it to inspect her she described Donna as looking though she’d been dragged behind a car on a gravel road she had two black eyes and various cuts and scrapes her face was so swollen that a paramedic couldn’t even open her eyes to check her pupils Mark Hook was apparently agitated and hysterical he said Donna had burnt herself by falling into a fire pit 12
days earlier but refused to go to hospital he treated her pain himself with Tylenol given her puffs from his asthma inhaler when she had difficulty breathing and fed her benad dril to avoid any allergic reactions according to him just 3 hours earlier Donna was alive and excitedly talking about Christmas gifts this was impossible according to Donna’s pathologist forensic evidence proved she’d died roughly 12 hours before he called 911 Donna’s cause of death was septic shock from the infection due to her untreated Burns which caused multiple
organ failure and these were no burns from a fire pit they didn’t have what was described as an upwards pattern but a downwards one indicative of scalding rather than Flames the most severe burns were on her back proving that Donna was crouching as boiling water was poured over her and the pattern also showed unburnt areas in the shape of arms Crossing her body in a protective pose she knew the burns were coming Mark H was taken in for questioning and by now his fire pit story had changed my wife has never spoken to me
the way she spoke to me two weeks ago she basically told me that she was going to go with somebody else that I wasn’t I wasn’t going to be a father that cuz I do I I do you know what I mean I’m not I’m not perfect I’m not a perfect person I get stressed out just like everybody else M and it all started one day I was making spaghetti in the kitchen and I wanted to make enough for two weeks because my wife loves spaghetti she loved my spaghetti she loved it to death so I was making a pot I was boiling water for the
noodles and she came up behind me and she just said she said something about just like this isn’t this isn’t working this isn’t happening I’m going to I’m going to cheat on you basically like I’m I’m you know what I mean if things don’t work out I’m going you know and she kept just saying it and putting it in my head and putting it in my head and putting it in my head bills in her house have been stacked up higher than you can imagine I’ve been going through things with my father everything like that and when she said that to me the water was
boiling and she was behind me and I thought she had left the room instead of leaving the room she was behind me she was crouched down and she was getting Tupperware out of the the thing to to bring for work and I don’t know why I don’t know what I did but the next thing I knew I just I hit that thing man I I I wanted to just you know what I mean I was so frustrated I just wanted to to to you know get my frustration out okay and when I hit that pot she was behind me and it just drenched her and after that I looked at her and I
said sweetheart we need to go to a hospital and she said I don’t want to go I don’t want to go to a hospital she was afraid for me to get in trouble and I said I don’t care just go to a hospital please we can deal with this together it’s an accident we can get through it she didn’t want to go I begged I pleaded with her she made up a story to her parents saying she was going to hwall for work she told and she actually did have a cold she called her work and said she had a cold that she was staying home and she wanted to heal at home and I
told her I said that’s not that’s we can’t do this we have to get to a hospital that went on for about a week of me changing bandages staying up all night making sure she’s okay she loved my spaghetti she loved it to death he said that without the faintest hint of irony and through all that dry-eyed crying he really painted himself as the hero but other autopsy findings tell a much darker story although Donna did have bandages on her fingers and left forearm the majority of her Burns were left undressed including those on her back
the deepest ones and as for the rest of her body well there was barely an inch of donor that wasn’t marked by some form of physical abuse as well as 40% of her skin having been inflicted with appalling Burns she had seven calloused ribs all healed untreated breakes likely caused by Kicks in addition to these there were two newly fractured ribs she had a broken nose two black eyes countless Cuts bruises scabs and scrapes all over her head knees and legs all of these injuries were caused after Donna was scalded 12 days earlier she had
fresh trauma to her scalp a broken left finger a fractured right wrist and an earlier break in her forearm known as a night stick fracture caused by raising her arm to protect herself from a blunt force impact but one of the most disturbing things the pathologist found were 29 small holes puncturing her skin all over her body within each was a lead pellet fired from this air pistol and this high power air rifle both of which were found inside the home each pellet was embedded roughly 1 cm inside her which meant that
they’d all been fired from close range as a result Donna was also beginning to suffer the early effects of lead poisoning and the pattern of the pallets wasn’t random they’d been deliberately shot into her feet legs shoulders and arms some of them through her septic wounds Mark H tortured Donna Jones for the 12 days it took her to die from the Burns according to the pathologist she been lying there dying and not doing anything else the home itself was described as a House of Horrors packed with more tale signs of abuse and violence forensic
officers found blood stains dotted and smeared on a number of Walls the hallway floor and stair posts they found handcuffs and an arsenal of weapons including both the pellet guns a bow and arrow a sword and this assortment of knives two of which were stained with blood they saw the punch holes in the walls a bathroom door that had been smashed open and more blood stains on one of Donna’s hair scrunchies shoes and the collar of a coat hundreds of handwritten notes were found around the home too notes that pointed to Mark
Hut’s Jael andhy Persona in one he’d called Donna a terrible wife in another he’d describe her as his Angel bagged up and neatly packed in boxes were Mark’s clothes and the expensive toys Donna had literally bankrupted herself to buy for him and according to his phone records he’d been making calls to an ex-girlfriend as his wife was lying in the basement it looked like he’d used her up and was moving on Donna also made calls after the scalding whilst lying battered with oozing Burns covering almost half her
body but she always covered for Mark and never once asked for help she even spoke to her mom to tell her that she was just sick and that she needn’t worry because her Mark was taking care of her don’t worry about me though okay yeah that’s on the I got my Mark here you got what I got my Mark here oh okay Days Later Mark Hook was again brought in for questioning confronted with the autopsy evidence this time he was a murder suspect and not a grieving husband the officer conducting the interview told Mark that he’s never seen
such a battered body in 30 years of police work she’s got broken ribs she’s got a broken nose she’s got Cuts behind her ear she’s got approximately 30 pellets in her what kind of Life did this woman have Hut’s response was to attempt to paint his wife was being clumsy and accident prone she was constantly tripping over the dogs or the vacuum cleaner he remembered the time when she’d fallen and broken a wrist a time when he’d elbowed her in the nose accidentally in his sleep and the time he’d accidentally hit her with a couple of pellets when
the pair were shooting at his trailer maybe a few more when he was intoxicated 29 pallets he said he could understand a NE neig charge but nothing more the officer asked Mark if he would rather be known as a diabolical murderer or someone who needed help with his anger issues my dad hit me when I was a kid I believe that my dad used to drink my mother was a drunk her boyfriend used to kick the crap out of me the trial began on May 8th 2013 and lasted 4 weeks Mark H pleaded guilty to the Lesser charge of criminal negligence
causing death the prosecution rejected this plea and argued that he was guilty of first-degree murder Mark’s defense lawyer long Goldstein didn’t deny he’d broken Donna’s bones he didn’t deny that he’ deliberately scaled her with boiling water or that he’d fired dozens of pellets into her skin from Point Blank Range instead he argued that the prosecution hadn’t sufficiently proven that it was his intention for her to die Goldstein conceded that Mark had tort Donna beyond comprehension but also accused the prosecution of attempting to
persuade the jury of his guilt by making them hate him rather than looking at the evidence he said Hut is guilty of criminal negligence but not of murder he needs to be punished and he will be but he needs to be convicted of the right offense Donna was his greatest protector if he wanted to kill her he had ample ways to kill her and get rid of the evidence no Witnesses took the stand in his defense the prosecutor Vicky bear argued that there was no way Mark hadn’t seen his wife crouching in their tiny kitchen
he deliberately scalded her after 4 years of barbaric abuse she said Hut wanted Donna to die ured she would die all that was left was for him to hide it from authorities even after her skin was peeling after she was literally rotting and stinking Mark hook continued to torture Donner only when there was no danger her voice would be heard only when he could control the story did he call 911 Donna had outlived her usefulness for H he had taken all she had to live for the jwelry were also shown this receipt for hot dog buns B the day Donna
was scalded it was used to dispute Mark’s claim that he was making pasta that evening multiple Witnesses took the stand for the prosecution the jury heard from Donna’s pathologist and listened in shock to the excessive list of injuries he found during her autopsy a Burns expert Dr Joel fish took the stand and said this if the victim walked into my Burn Unit I would immediately put her on a high dose of morphine just out of pure Humanity she would have been in Exquisite pain he said that he would have placed Donna in a medically induced
coma and performed skin grafts on her and had she received proper medical treatment her chance of survival would have been virtually 100% Dr fish also dismissed the idea that Donna physically prevented mark from taking her to hospital because someone in septic shock would be far too weak to physically hit and scream another other person to take the stand was Deborah an Sinclair a domestic violence expert and Crown witness who testified that Donna was likely snared in what’s known as a trauma bond this Bond was likely formed through a mixture
of savage abuse and sporadic displays of affection creating a deep psychological hold over Donna it was then maintained by preying on her insecurities exploiting her nurturing side and positioning himself as a victim in order to gain sympathy Sinclair explained that victims of this type of abuse often only considered the consequences for the abuser not for themselves so they protect them even at their own expense the detective on this case Michael Hudson said one of the hardest things about this case was seeing
Donna’s family friends and co-workers who tried to intervene wondering if they could have saved her everyone did everything they could possibly do he said there’s only one villain here and he’s going to jail for a long time it took the jury less than a day to deliberate and on June 7th 23 13 they found Mark HW guilty of first-degree murder it carried an automatic sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years the maximum penalty in Canada afterwards Donna’s little brother Derek said this an evil man was
put the put the jail for evil crimes done to my sister and he will pay for the rest of his life the justice system Prevail and the dear Lord will take care of many after how much of a troll has this taken on your family um it’s taken an enormous troll um it’s such a a negative impact for someone to die so young so senseless I mean all she wanted to do was have a loving caring family and this is the this is what she got from an evil man Donna’s voice was silenced by Mark Hut is her voice speaking out now she is now loud and
clear what is she saying she’s saying that nobody can do this to anybody and if you need help get help please don’t allow it to happen get help there’s lots of support networks out there you Des deserve better you don’t need to suffer anything you are all good people you just have a bad situation and there’s lots of doors that you can open that people will open for you to get through it to move on what do you what do you want to say to Mark Hut uh I have nothing to say to him what an awful case one of the hardest ones I’ve done I don’t really
have an awful lot to say about it other than to Echo Derek’s statement and say that if any of this story resonated with you if any of it sounded all too familiar about you or a loved one then please reach out help is out there even if it’s just to get the ball rolling to speak to someone or get some advice reach out bye
