‘Ran for my life’: Man tells Kamloops jury his wife’s abuse, torture turned sexual

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A Kamloops man told a jury he was threatened and had to flee his own home, which by spring 2024 had become the setting of his repeated torture by others, including his wife, the mother of his three children.

He said he was burned, maimed, beaten and violated with an alcohol bottle amid a relationship by then deeply steeped in drugs and stumbling into the drug business.

Brandon Hoodicoff ran several blocks but was denied help at two Tk’emlups gas stations. He said he borrowed a phone to call police for help. That was two years ago.

“I ran… out of there,” he told the court, Feb. 10. “I was looking back, wasn’t sure if they were going to come after me. I just ran for my life.”

The Crown has already told the jury its theory that the other man, Devon Jules, involved the couple in a gang to sell drugs and it resulted in multiple incidents of violence against Hoodicoff.

Hoodicoff left the house on April 17, 2024, after Devon threatened him while holding a rifle. He told the jury he thinks Devon suspected he “ratted them out.”

“I only want to talk to Jessica, so you… go. You better run,” Hoodicoff quoted him as saying, describing him as having a “smug” look.

He said his wife, Jessica Jules, (not related to Devon) was keen to join Devon’s crew and he accused her of torturing him as part of the initiation process.

Jessica and Devon are facing several criminal charges for allegedly assaulting, confining and uttering threats to Hoodicoff in April 2024. Hoodicoff took the stand on the second day of the trial, Feb. 10.

Hoodicoff said he and Jessica began spending time with Devon in the months leading up to the alleged assaults. They were drinking and doing drugs together. Devon later moved into the house and suggested they start selling drugs together.

Hoodicoff said a portion of his ear was cut off, he had burn marks from lighters on his body, and he was bruised from beatings.

In one incident, he said he was on a chair in the bedroom being assaulted as discipline for breaking rules in the crew. At the time, his children were in the house and he was concerned they might hear it, he said.

“That’d be the last thing I’d want my children to see is them walking into the bedroom and the mother doing salacious, violent things to the father. It’s something any child should never witness,” he said.

Devon, Jessica and Hoodicoff didn’t speak much about the incident afterward, but he was warned about breaking rules in the future, he said.

“This is what happens if you step out of line, and you can expect more of it if it happens again,” Hoodicoff quoted them as telling him at the time.

That was the second incident, following one earlier that month when he said Jessica tortured him as initiation into the crew. The Crown said Devon made Jessica second-in-command as a result.

In the early morning of April 17, 2024, he was assaulted for a third time, but it took a sexual turn that time.

Devon, Jessica, Hoodicoff and two unnamed people were drinking and doing cocaine at the home throughout the night, and Hoodicoff said he was trying to “taper off” before leaving for work. He was still there when Devon suggested someone do an “alcohol enema” and it was Hoodicoff who was chosen.

On the same chair he was “tortured on” in the bedroom, one of them put a bottle up his rectum.

“I did not have a choice,” he said. “If I didn’t do it, I knew something bad would happen. Either get knocked the heck out or I’d have my life threatened.”

It was soon after that Devon threatened him with the rifle and he fled the house.

Hoodicoff is expected to be cross-examined by defence lawyers on Feb. 11. The trial is scheduled to continue for another 17 days in BC Supreme Court.