Accused killer said ‘sorry’ mom

[the accused] was crying, rambling and suicidal when his mother discovered he had killed a friend during a heated dispute last October, a jury heard on Tuesday.   A sobbing, at time highly emotional [accused] told Crown prosecutor Gary Cornfield that her son kept repeating “he was sorry and that he loved me.”

“I was overwhelmed. I thought I was going to faint,” the distraught mother testified at her son’s second-degree murder trial at Court of Queen’s Bench. “There was blood all over him, on his head, his eyes and shirt.”

[the accused] allegedly struck [the victim] several times with a meat cleaver during the confrontation in the accused’s bedroom in a Forest Lawn basement suite.  [the mother], who lived two doors away from her son, said that after she was shown [the victim]’s body on the floor, [the accused] told her he had been attacked  by the 18-year-old when he walked through the door.

“He said [the victim] was in the bedroom, behind the door with a knife. They had a fight,” she said. “He was freaking out when he told me.”

The mother said her son appeared to be under the influence of either alcohol or cocaine, as he did not normally act like that, but acknowledged she had seen the effects of cocaine on him before.  Under cross-examination by co-defence counsel David Chow, the accused’s mother said her son told her when he took the weapon from [the victim] he was “just defending himself.”  Earlier, a friend of both the accused and the victim, said an upset [mother] had asked him to come over to her son’s home.  [the friend], currently serving a 2-year prison sentence for cocaine trafficking, testified that [the accused] was “really beat up” with a cut above his eye and bumps on top of his head.

“He said when he had opened the door to his room, [the victim] was going through his stuff, then attacked him,” said [the friend]. “There was a struggle, [the accused] got the knife away and ended up stabbing [the victim]”.  [the friend] also said he believed [the accused] was on some kind of chemical, such as coke or ecstacy.

The trial continues today.

2006-06-06
Calgary Herald
By: Daryl Slade