'He's not smiling now, eh'

By Mike Strobel, Toronto Sun, March 13, 2003

Amy White leans forward and whispers to Katie Woodward: "He's not smiling now, eh?"

And he isn't.

His face looks grim and grey against the orange prison garb.

No sign of any smirk, like the one in the cat torture video.

Or the grin he gave our camera at Pearson as he arrived from Vancouver in handcuffs.

No, the young man with tufted, dirty-blond hair in the dock in tiny, stark Room 101 at Old City Hall does not look happy at all.

Perhaps reality is biting. A few days in the Don Jail and a courtroom full of animal lovers will do that to a guy.

Even if your first court appearance is a quickie. Justice of the Peace Ian McNish sets a bail hearing for Friday.

Matthew Kaczorowski, 21, is charged with mischief, theft and possession of stolen property.

17 Minutes of Horror

As in theft and possession of a cat named Kensington.

A 17-minute real-life horror flick showed her torture, death and skinning by three young men.

Two of them, Anthony Wennekers, 25, and Jesse Power, 22, were sentenced last year to time served and 90 days respectively. Power said the video was an art project.

Their co-star, known only as "Matt," took off.

But the cops, Katie Woodward, 21, a cat-lover from Haliburton and Amy White, 30, of the Toronto Humane Society stayed in pursuit.

In courtroom 101, Kaczorowski is in and out like an orange flash.

His life must be a blur since Toronto Police Det. Gord Scott and Const. John Margetson arrested him last week.

Since they came to his messy bachelor apartment in a lowrise near downtown Vancouver.

Kaczorowski shared it with a girlfriend. And a mixed-breed dog and a long-haired cat.

The cat startled the bejeezuz out of Margetson when it leaped from under a couch during the search.

They found the apartment's walls covered with comic book art. Most was commercial, but some of it was Kaczorowski's.

He has artistic flair. A self-portrait is posted on the Web.

He is from Nova Scotia, but has spent his life adrift. He was a squeegee kid in Toronto when Kensington was killed.

In courtroom 101's anteroom, Katie Woodward huddles in a corner with Scott and Margetson.

She launched the Find Matt Campaign a year ago. A Vancouver woman saw her Web site, recognized the photo.

Gord Scott's hunch that "Matt" had gone west was right. Meanwhile, he chased tips all over Ontario. I would not want Scott or Margetson on my trail.

Or Katie Woodward. She sat through the sentencing of Wennekers and Power. She cried at the video. She cried when she heard the soft sentences. So did Amy White.

"I'm not holding out much hope that this guy's gonna get any more," she says.

Well, that's down the road.

Meanwhile, there is relief all around.

Humane society inspector John Dobranski, 29, saw the worst of the Kensington case. He removed the cat's body and other gore from a fridge in the Bathurst St. rooming house where the video was shot.

"All the way down to the courthouse today," he tells me, "I replayed that in my head."

White still chokes up when she talks about the video. I know why. I saw it, too.

She thinks of the video as she stares at the man in orange. "You think he'll be larger than life, but he's just a puny kid, sort of small and meek."

Woodward keeps her eyes fixed on him, too. Heart racing. Don't look away, don't look away, she tells herself. But the prisoner's eyes never wander our way.

"He looked kinda scared," Katie tells me later. "I'd love to stand in front of him and ask, 'Why?'"

The night before, Katie was in a Shopper's Drug Mart on Kingston Rd. A woman recognized her as the "cat woman" and soon she was the centre of attention.

Indeed, the case has struck an international nerve. My column about the arrest brought e-mails from as far afield as Britain, France and Puerto Rico.

A lot of fuss for a little cat.

But, says White, "it shows everyone is taking animal cruelty seriously. Agencies won't say, 'Oh, it's just a cat.' They're saying what happened to that cat was morally reprehensible and we'll find everyone involved and hold them accountable."

Oh, yes. I think there will be a lot of eyes on little courtroom 101 and wherever else this case goes.