EDMONTON — The wife of an Edmonton man who was beaten into a vegetative state a decade ago says his attacker is appealing a court ruling that declared him a dangerous offender.
Lesley Miller says she got the news in an email sent to her by the appeal and prosecutions branch on Aug. 24, but she only recently got home from a trip to Scotland to attend her mother’s funeral.
Miller says she’s been told that Leo Teskey does not have a lawyer and has filed the appeal himself.
It is not clear if the matter will make it to court.
Miller says she’s spent the last decade heartbroken over what’s happened to her husband Dougald and will attend any hearing involving Teskey as long as she’s alive.
She says she wants Teskey to know he picked the wrong victim.
Dougald Miller was walking through a building he and his wife owned on Nov. 21, 2000, when he came across Teskey sleeping in the hall. As the caretaker was escorting him out, Teskey launched a brutal attack, crushing Dougald’s skull, breaking his jaw, tearing off part of his ear.
Dougald, who is now 71, has been in a vegetative state ever since the beating. His wife has devoted her life to caring for him and ensuring that Teskey never gets out of jail.
The dangerous offender ruling earlier this year is the second time Teskey has been deemed a danger to the public.
The first was after he was initially convicted of aggravated assault in the Miller case, but the Supreme Court ordered a new trial. The high court said the judge had take an unreasonable length of time to deliver his written reasons for the conviction.
That decision meant Teskey’s dangerous offender status was also overturned. He was convicted again in February 2009.
Teskey’s lengthy rap sheet includes a conviction for shooting Edmonton police Const. Mike Lakusta in 1988. He was also convicted in 1994 of tearing the penis of the two-year-old son of a girlfriend.
According to several psychologists and psychiatrists, Teskey is “virtually untreatable,” Peterson said.