To bad this Mom did not have a self defense weapon !

Affidavit seeking a restraining order shortly before she died

PUBLICATION: GLOBE AND MAIL
IDN: 050250026
DATE: 2005.01.25
PAGE: A8
BYLINE: ROD MICKLEBURGH
SECTION: National News
EDITION: National
DATELINE: NANAIMO, B.C.
WORDS: 624

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Her father’s wrath, her mother’s death
B.C. teen gives chilling account of slaying

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ROD MICKLEBURGH NANAIMO, B.C.

It was a perfectly ordinary day. They had been shopping for shoes, and Angie Centis sat quietly in the front seat of the family minivan, munching potato chips as her mother hopped out to fill the gas tank at a local self-serve. Moments later, Angie heard a big bang, and nothing has been ordinary for the teenager since.

She first thought the gas tank had blown. But when she turned to look, Angie saw her mother falling to the ground, killed by a single blast in the back from a sawed-off shotgun.

As 44-year-old Rosella Centis fell, Angie would recount later, “I just kind of stared at her.” The murder of Ms. Centis left five children without a mother.

At 13, Angie was the oldest. The others were 11, 9, 7 and 3. Two days later, when police arrested Ms. Centis’s husband, Joseph Frank Centis, and charged him with murder, the children were essentially without a father, too.

The cold-blooded slaying followed an escalating series of threats by Mr. Centis, as his wife pursued a divorce. He had told friends that a 25-cent bullet was cheaper than a divorce.

In an affidavit seeking a restraining order shortly before she died, Ms. Centis said she feared for her safety after Mr. Centis took three firearms from the home. Nothing was done.

Yesterday, Angie, now 15, sat in B.C. Supreme Court, clutching a friend’s hand as lawyers argued the appropriate sentence for Mr.

Centis, who pleaded guilty this month to second-degree murder.

Prosecutor Scott Van Alstine urged Mr. Justice James Taylor to sentence Mr. Centis to life imprisonment with no parole eligibility for 15 years.

What the courtroom heard yesterday was both chilling and heartbreaking.

A victim impact statement by Ms. Centis’s best friend told of waiting with the four younger children at the police station for news of their mother.

“I watched as they clung onto their teddy bears. How in God’s name do you break such awful news to them?” Four of the Centis children also submitted victim impact statements, but Mr. Van Alstine chose not to read them in order to respect their privacy.

“But they are eloquent. They are moving. They show a deep love for their mother, who was their best friend,” Mr. Van Alstine told the court. “And they show their tremendous sadness at not having her there any more.

“At the same time, some also show fear for what will happen when Joe Centis is released from jail. One asked: ‘Did he not think of us?’ ” The prosecutor then talked about Angie and the twin burdens she has as both the oldest and the child who witnessed the killing.

“The picture of her mother falling to the ground will be seen directly by Angie for the rest of her life. One moment, they were doing mother-daughter things. The next moment, her mother was dead.

“What does that say about this man’s character, that Rosella Centis was shot . . . in the back . . . in the presence of the daughter they both shared? “It was an execution.” As her father, a heavy-set man with sad, hollow eyes, sat in the prisoner’s box, Angie left the courtroom only once, when details of her mother’s large wound and loss of blood became too much.

The terrible crime has gripped this modest, mostly industrial city on Vancouver Island since it happened on Sept. 1, 2002.

Not only were people stunned by the nature of the killing, but their hearts were also moved by the plight of the five Centis children.

Trust funds were set up and the children have remained together in Nanaimo, cared for by a foster family.