Lapensee can't decide whether he's lying. Or just forgetful

On November 25, 2005, Clayton Lapensee's day began at 5 a.m.

Lapensee awoke and left Karen Keeping, a woman he identified yesterday as his ex-girlfriend at the time, sleeping in the bed they shared the night before.

He slipped into the kitchen to fix his lunch for work.

"We were kind of split up but we were kind of dating," Lapensee told Crown Attorney Bill Johnson yesterday, under cross-examination at his trial on charges of charges of driving while impaired, causing the death of Anita Proulx and injuring Amanda Proulx.

"So if you were not together, why was she there?" Johnson asked.

"For physical companionship," Lapensee answered.

"Oh, okay. Well then it sounds like you were still together," Johnson remarked.

"No, not really," replied Lapensee.

Yesterday, Clayton Lapensee had a hard time deciding whether answers he gave a Sault Ste. Marie police officer were lies or misunderstandings.

Or was it just his inability to recall details of what happened either two-and-a-half years ago at his last trial, or four-and-a-half years ago when he left the Rosie, drove down Korah Road, turned the corner onto Second Line and plowed into a van operated by Anita Proulx?

Lapensee told the court that left his ex-girlfriend asleep in bed and drove down the road to work at about 6 a.m..

It would have taken him only a few minutes to drive from his home at 62 Arden Street to the steel plant where he was working at the time.

Lapensee parked his 1992 two-tone blue-and-silver Ford F-150 in the parking lot by the Bonnie Street Gate to what is now Essar Steel Algoma and hung around for a coworker from the mill.

The left-handed ironworker was employed with McLeod Brothers Construction at the time.

He was doing a contract job in the steel plant for McLeod.

At the plant gate, Lapensee says he told a coworker or two to tell his supervisor he was too sick to work that Friday.

During his testimony yesterday, and also at his first trial two-and-a-half years ago, Lapensee was unable to remember which of his coworkers he asked to deliver that message to his supervisor.

Lapensee's supervisor never received such a message, if in fact one was sent.

That fact was confirmed in a statement of evidence agreed to by the both Crown and Defence, read into the court records yesterday before Superior Court Justice Edward Koke.

Testifying yesterday in his own defence, Lapensee told his attorney Bruce Willson that he went home to bed then because he was feeling unwell, that he had the flu.

After he felt a little better, he got up and started snow-blowing his driveway because it had snowed fairly heavily.

But he was too sick to finish the job then, he said yesterday.

So he went back in the house and back to sleep until about 3 p.m.

However, Crown Attorney Bill Johnson produced a bank machine receipt bearing Lapensee's debit card number, showing a transaction at the Royal Bank on the corner of Korah Road and Second Line at 1:19 p.m. on Friday, November 25, 2005.

Lapensee surmised that he must have gotten up at that time and gone to deposit his paycheque.

"So you were not feeling well?" Johnson asked him.

"I was feeling poorly," said Lapensee.

Johnson pointed out that there was a pharmacy right across from the bank and it would have made sense for Lapensee to get some medicine while he was there.

"But I didn't," said Lapensee. "I went and did my banking and went back home and went to sleep."

Then, around 3 p.m. Lapensee says he decided to get up and go get some medicine.

He planned to pick up some ibuprofen for his sore shoulder and some Vitamin C for his cold, drop off some items to the dry cleaner and pick up a carton of cigarettes.

But on his way he just decided, spur of the moment, to pull into Misty's 50s at the corner of Goulais Avenue and Second Line West.

"So your first stop was at a bar to have a beer?" asked Johnson. "Were you going there to socialize? Were you meeting someone?"

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