Closing Arguments Heard in Case of Gambling Addict Accused of Killing Daughters
Closing arguments were heard Thursday for the Oak Bay, British Columbia father accused of killing his two daughters.
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Andrew Berry is charged with two counts of second-degree murder in the Christmas Day 2017 killings of his daughters Chloe, 6, and Aubrey, 4.
Berry himself was found bloodied in a bathtub of the home.
"He got to the bathtub because the killer put him there," said his lawyer Kevin McCullough. "All of this was done to stage this as a murder-suicide."
McCullough went on to tell the jury that both daughters may have been stabbed elsewhere in the home, placed in their respective beds and stabbed again.
McCullough also asked the jury to consider the fact Berry was wearing a shirt when he suffered more than a dozen small, shallow stab wounds to his chest. "If Mr. Berry was going to commit suicide, why would he leave his shirt on to stab himself?"
McCullough addressed the evidence that Berry never asked about his daughters while recovering in hospital and never told anyone he had been attacked.
"As a matter of law, these are not the sort of things you can take into consideration at all," he told the court. "Silence is not something that can be used against someone."
The defence then told the jury that if they do believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Berry killed his daughters and then attempted suicide, they will be asked to consider intent, and Berry's altered state of mind.
"On the Crown's best day, this case was nothing more than manslaughter," McCullough said, adding, "Mr. Berry did not kill these girls."
The Crown alleges that Berry used a baseball bat and a knife to kill Chloe, then stabbed Aubrey to death before trying to kill himself.
Berry claims he and the girls were attacked by an unknown man with "dark skin and dark hair."
Berry has testified that he owed a large gambling debt to a loan shark named Paul, and had given a spare set of apartment keys to Paul's associates so they could access packages Berry had agreed to store.
The Crown will present its closing argument Friday, and the case will go to the jury early next week.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
