Prosecutors say there isn’t a proof a person accused of murdering a preferred Vancouver park caretaker suffers from a psychological situation.
Prosecutor Colleen Smith made the feedback as she delivered the Crown’s closing arguments within the second-degree homicide trial of 54-year-old Brent White.
White has pleaded not responsible to killing 77-year-old Justis Daniel, who was discovered with greater than 40 stab wounds in his caretaker residence in Tatlow Park on Dec. 10, 2021.
“Crown submits that it has confirmed past an inexpensive doubt that Mr. White’s extended and brutal assault of Justis Daniel was not in self-defence,” Smith advised the court docket. “Mr. White had the requisite intent for homicide when he killed Justis Daniel.”
White, who testified in his personal defence, claimed that Daniel had immediately attacked him, biting his neck like a vampire and probably consuming his blood. He additionally claimed Daniel threw a knife at his face, and had referred to as him the equal of Devil.
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He testified responded by pulling a folding knife out of his pocket and defending himself.
“The testimony of Mr. White is unreliable and must be rejected,” Smith advised the court docket.
“There may be a lot proof to show that Mr. White had the requisite intent. The quantity and nature of the accidents, the power that was required to inflict these accidents.”
Daniel was discovered stabbed 42 occasions, together with 18 occasions within the face, head and neck. He additionally had three separate facial fractures and a punctured lung.
A toxicology report later concluded there was no alcohol or medicine in his system.
Smith referred again to Daniel’s son’s testimony that he had by no means seen his father, a lung-transplant recipient and most cancers survivor, violent or aggressive.
Smith additional famous that White took Daniel’s keys and telephone, lined the physique and blood stains in a number of elements of the house after which locked the door on his manner out. He then later disposed of the keys and telephone, proof which linked him to the killing, she stated.
On Monday, White’s lawyer Brent Anderson advised the court docket his shopper had made no effort to cowl his tracks. White was arrested three months after the killing, nonetheless in possession of a knife and sneakers with Daniel’s blood on them.
“There is no such thing as a rational foundation, in anyway, for Mr. White to lie about his perception in any respect. I might submit that no sane individual would fabricate an account as weird as this and count on it to be believed,” Anderson advised the court docket.
“The one cheap conclusion is that Mr. White genuinely believed that’s precisely what occurred.”
White has explicitly opted to not pursue a psychological sickness defence, nonetheless, his lawyer advised the court docket there was compelling proof that his shopper had an “impaired psychological state at time” of the killing.
B.C. Supreme Court docket Justice Miriam Maisonville has not ordered an evaluation to find out whether or not White just isn’t criminally accountable by the use of a psychological dysfunction presently.
Maisonville has reserved her verdict for a later date.
— with information from Rumina Daya
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