Norbert Budai knew exactly what he was doing when he doused his ex-wife with gasoline and set her ablaze – of course he did.
So, despite his self-serving testimony that he never meant to hurt Henrietta Viski, his common-law wife of 19 years and mother of his three children, and that he was high on vodka and fentanyl, Superior Court Justice Jane Kelly didn’t believe any of it and convicted him of first-degree murder on Friday.
“I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Budai knew what he was doing, that he planned to kill Ms. Viski by dousing her with gasoline and lighting her on fire, that he deliberated on that plan and that he carried it out in a horrific manner,” she told him as he hung his head in the witness box, listening to her judgment through a Hungarian translator.
She told him to stand.
“Sir, you are convicted of first-degree murder,” Kelly said.
At the beginning of his trial, Budai, 41, had tried to plead guilty to second-degree murder but it was rejected by the Crown.
Court heard the couple, refugee claimants who arrived in Canada in 2019, had a tumultuous breakup two years later and Budai was convicted of uttering threats and breaching court orders to stay away from Viski.
“I just want to get my family back,” he explained at the time.
That hope disappeared when his ex began dating another Hungarian man and “it broke his heart,” Kelly said.
After Viski dyed her hair a bright red, Budai complained that “she became a different person.”
The jealous ex testified that he lit her on fire because he wanted to burn her hair, which he associated with her “cheating” on him, and thought “just like when we put dry grass on fire, it would just disappear.”
On June 16, 2022, Budai went to the Scarborough townhome on Chester Le Blvd. that Viski, 37, shared with their children and in front of two of their kids, threatened to light her on fire. At his trial, he insisted he didn’t mean it.
“It was just a statement,” Budai claimed.
But Kelly called out his lie.
“His evidence is contradicted by his own actions on June 17, 2022, when he did just that,” she said.
At 6:53 a.m., Budai tried to get into her house but it was locked. He returned about seven hours later and is seen on the complex’s video surveillance carrying a red jerrycan out of his car.
He ploughed threw her locked front door with his shoulder and as Viski sat on the sofa, he doused her with gasoline. When she ran outside to get away, he followed and aimed his lighter right at her chest.
“It defies logic that he did not think that Ms. Viski’s body would go up in flames,” Kelly said.
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The judge saw no evidence that suggested he was too high or impaired to understand the consequences of what he was doing.
“Mr. Budai made the threat to light Ms. Viski on fire when he was sober. He left. He deliberated on that plan, then his conduct showed the exection of that plan.”
The murder is stunning in its cruelty.
Viski was engulfed in flames for almost a minute before a neighbour was able to extinguish the fire. Even as she was burning, video shows Budai wrestling with her on the ground, grabbing at her hair and ripping some of it out.
It would be her daughter who would have to call 911. Her poor mother suffered thermal burns to 80% of her body and died in hospital the next day.
So, Viski became yet another victim of femicide in our city; another tragic case of intimate partner violence with all the usual hallmarks of an enraged man who decided that if he couldn’t have her, no one could.
Crown attorney Matthew Shumka told Kelly the couple’s children have declined to provide victim impact statements.
While Budai faces an automatic life term, the judge said she will sentence him formally next month.