It took 75 minutes Thursday for Crown Attorney Paul Leishman to read aloud in court the 25 pages detailing one of the most heinous crimes in Toronto’s history — one man, confined to a closet and brutally tortured, physically, sexually and psychologically, over the course of three months.
His body cut with razor blades and beaten with hammers and broom handles until they broke. Lighter fluid poured over his skin, and then set on fire. Cartilage ripped from his ears with a pair of pliers. Pins pierced through his lips, sealing his mouth. Bleeding wounds cauterized with hot knives or sewn up with a needle and thread.
Those responsible for the horrific abuse were the man’s own wife and her new boyfriend.
The location was a cramped one-bedroom basement apartment in the city’s west end.
John Michael Siscoe, 40, and the victim’s wife, 30, quietly pleaded guilty earlier this week in the Superior Court of Justice to a slew of charges, including endangering a life and sexual assault causing bodily harm, from Oct. 31, 2009, until police rescued the man on Jan. 19, 2010.....
I felt the Earth move under my feet: a running, shaking thread
