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A General Motors manager has been found guilty of arson in an early-morning fire that broke out three years ago in her then-fiancé’s GTA home.
Melanie Bos sat silent and grim, hands clasped, as the verdict was delivered in an Oshawa court Friday.
The 46-year-old mother of two was a rising star in GM management when she began a romantic relationship with James Hoy, a former union leader at the carmaker’s Oshawa plant.
Their relationship went up in smoke when he accused her of setting fire to his 150-year-old country home in Courtice while he slept in June 2009.
“I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Melanie Bos intentionally caused damage by fire to Jim Hoy’s home, knowing that Jim Hoy was in bed in the home at the time she set the fire,” Justice Bryan Shaughnessy wrote in a 69-page judgment delivered Friday.
A related charge of mischief may be subject to a stay and will be addressed Friday in court. Bos may be released on bail until sentencing, which will be scheduled later Friday.
The Crown had argued that Bos, a married woman, was living a double life, hiding the affair with Hoy from her husband as she led Hoy to believe her husband was dead.
During the three-week trial, which ended in April, both men took the stand to accuse her of trying to kill them.
Court heard Bos and Hoy worked together off and on for more than a decade at General Motors, at times on opposite sides of the bargaining table in contract negotiations.
Hoy testified he became romantically involved with Bos in late 2008 and was under the impression she had been divorced for several years. Soon after they started dating, he testified, Bos told him her husband had died suddenly in bed with a new girlfriend.
Bos disputed his account of events, testifying that they only became a couple after her marriage fell apart and that Hoy was well aware of her relationship status.
Both Bos and Hoy agreed their relationship began to fall apart after they went into business together, buying several southern Ontario properties over a short period of time.
Crown attorney David Parke argued that Bos, caught in a web of lies and unable to come up with a $100,000 down payment for one of the properties she and Hoy were to purchase together, set the fire as a diversion.
Defence lawyer Glen Orr argued Hoy was the one who was cash-strapped and he set the fire himself because he needed the insurance money. Orr argued that Bos’s ex-husband and ex-fiancé plotted to frame her for crimes she did not commit.
Court heard the blaze in question was small, did not spread and was only investigated by fire inspectors months later. It was lit inside a small hole in the wall at Hoy’s residence when both Bos and Hoy were home.
Bos now goes by her maiden name, Chandler, but was tried under her married name. She and her husband, Bruce Bos, divorced in December 2010.
Melanie Bos sat silent and grim, hands clasped, as the verdict was delivered in an Oshawa court Friday.
The 46-year-old mother of two was a rising star in GM management when she began a romantic relationship with James Hoy, a former union leader at the carmaker’s Oshawa plant.
Their relationship went up in smoke when he accused her of setting fire to his 150-year-old country home in Courtice while he slept in June 2009.
“I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Melanie Bos intentionally caused damage by fire to Jim Hoy’s home, knowing that Jim Hoy was in bed in the home at the time she set the fire,” Justice Bryan Shaughnessy wrote in a 69-page judgment delivered Friday.
A related charge of mischief may be subject to a stay and will be addressed Friday in court. Bos may be released on bail until sentencing, which will be scheduled later Friday.
The Crown had argued that Bos, a married woman, was living a double life, hiding the affair with Hoy from her husband as she led Hoy to believe her husband was dead.
During the three-week trial, which ended in April, both men took the stand to accuse her of trying to kill them.
Court heard Bos and Hoy worked together off and on for more than a decade at General Motors, at times on opposite sides of the bargaining table in contract negotiations.
Hoy testified he became romantically involved with Bos in late 2008 and was under the impression she had been divorced for several years. Soon after they started dating, he testified, Bos told him her husband had died suddenly in bed with a new girlfriend.
Bos disputed his account of events, testifying that they only became a couple after her marriage fell apart and that Hoy was well aware of her relationship status.
Both Bos and Hoy agreed their relationship began to fall apart after they went into business together, buying several southern Ontario properties over a short period of time.
Crown attorney David Parke argued that Bos, caught in a web of lies and unable to come up with a $100,000 down payment for one of the properties she and Hoy were to purchase together, set the fire as a diversion.
Defence lawyer Glen Orr argued Hoy was the one who was cash-strapped and he set the fire himself because he needed the insurance money. Orr argued that Bos’s ex-husband and ex-fiancé plotted to frame her for crimes she did not commit.
Court heard the blaze in question was small, did not spread and was only investigated by fire inspectors months later. It was lit inside a small hole in the wall at Hoy’s residence when both Bos and Hoy were home.
Bos now goes by her maiden name, Chandler, but was tried under her married name. She and her husband, Bruce Bos, divorced in December 2010.
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