Alpha Henry trial: the defense thesis defies all logic, according to the Crown

The defense at Alpha Henry’s trial plans to file a motion for not criminal responsibility if the judge finds his client guilty of double murder, which did not prevent the Crown from demonstrating that the accused had the intention to kill his parents in 2022. The 30-year-old Torontonian is charged with unpremeditated murder and attempted murder against his brother, an Air Canada flight attendant at the time.

In this trial without a jury, Alpha Henry’s defense argues that it was his client’s brother who killed their parents after a heated exchange with their mother before attacking her with a knife.

The Henry brothers were arrested the same night, Daniel in a gas station and Alpha in the victims’ home. They had called 911 to say that they had each been the victim of an attack by the other.

Crown indictment

However, for the Crown, it is impossible that Daniel Henry could have murdered his parents and injured his brother, because the double murder was committed two days earlier while the flight attendant was in Japan.

She admits that she is unable to establish the exact date of the parricide due to the lack of a conclusive autopsy, but the knife attack on Daniel Henry certainly did not take place on the same day as the double murder.

According to her, it is therefore improbable that Daniel, upon arriving from the airport, on the evening of September 20, 2022, could have killed his parents, transported the bodies to the bath, doused them with gasoline, cleaned the crime scene, left the scene. apartment to throw bloodstained sheets there, attack his brother before fleeing.

All in 7 minutes?asks prosecutor Michael Wilson, recalling the time that had passed between the alleged exchange between Daniel Henry and their parents and the accused’s call to 911.

Mr. Wilson explains that the phone calls, the use of a contactless key fob to enter and exit the victims’ building and the surveillance cameras suggest that the double murder was committed between noon and 3 p.m. -noon of September 19, 2022.

The prosecutor also shows that all telephone communications with the victims ceased after this date.

Thread of deadly events

Mr. Wilson recalls that the accused was discovered on September 18, 2022 by a security guard in the boiler room of a building adjacent to that of his parents where he was living illegally.

The police officer called to the scene to evict him had filmed the scene.

The prosecutor claims that the individual in the images cannot be confused with the accused thanks to the clothes he was wearing. He suggests that the scissors seen behind the accused in the room are the murder weapon.

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Mr. Wilson shows that the accused carried the pair of scissors in question sometimes in his backpack, sometimes in his pants, when we see him in the surveillance videos of the building’s elevator.

He suggests that Veronica Henry was stabbed in the abdomen with the scissors on the living room couch and that Colin Henry was stabbed in the chest on his bedroom bed.

The prosecutor claims that the accused then removed the sheets from his father’s bed 24 hours later, threw them into a container outside with personal belongings and hid his sneakers in the kitchen, because they were stained with blood.

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He claims that the blue vest he wore on September 18, 2022 was clean before it was found stained with blood on September 2, 2022 in the victims’ accommodation.

Mr. Wilson claims that Alpha Henry left the building on September 20 to buy a first, then a second can of gasoline at a station and that he filled them at the pump as evidenced by the surveillance videos. .

He points out that the accused returned to the apartment to drop off the cans before going to the Rexdale shopping center to buy three kitchen knives, a sharpener and a flashlight.

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The prosecutor says Alpha Henry later used his mother’s cell phone to send a message to his brother asking when he was returning home.

Thinking he was speaking to his mother, Daniel Henry, replied that he was coming back in the early evening of September 20, 2022.

Mr. Wilson maintains that the accused attacked his brother in the night with a kitchen knife while shouting Die you bitchbefore Daniel neutralizes him and flees.

Veronica and Colin Henry were already dead, but Daniel didn’t know it yet at that timehe said.

The prosecutor points out that there is no reason to believe that Daniel Henry did not tell the truth on the witness stand at the start of the trial.

Three compromising lies

The Crown finally asserts that Alpha Henry formulated three huge lies to the police. He initially said he lived with his parents.

However, he lived in a boiler room and surveillance videos from his parents’ building show him looking for their apartment. He didn’t know they lived at number 417maintains prosecutor Wilson.

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The accused then claimed that he had purchased gasoline for his brother’s car before prices rose again while he was in Japan. However, he wanted to set fire to the corpses, but without success.

Alpha Henry finally told that Daniel returned around 1 a.m. on the night of September 20 to 21, 2022.

However, Daniel Henry returned from Japan the day before and he went to drive friends, go shopping, eat and see a movie before returning to the apartment he shared with his parents.

Questionable theory of defense

The accused’s lawyer, Jamie Kopman, recalls that the autopsy was inconclusive and that it cannot be confirmed that the couple was killed two days before their bodies were discovered.

According to emergency services, Veronica was killed a few minutes before my client called 911he said, recalling that the paramedics had noted rigor mortis which suggests the approximate time of the murders.

Mr. Kopman points out that there is no DNA evidence that his client carried the bodies into the bathroom to put them in the bathtub. No fingerprints were found on the bodies of the victimshe said.

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The lawyer mentions that there is also no evidence that his client cleaned traces of blood from the floor and walls after dragging the bodies.

It is only the opinion of a police officer who said that traces of blood had been wiped offhe declares.

Me Kopman further explains that his client’s blood which was detected on a rubber glove is indeed his, but that it dates froman old injury committed well before the night of the murder.

He claims that his client did buy gasoline for his brother’s car, but that Daniel Henry used it to spray the bodies after finding the two cans on the balcony of the apartment.

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The lawyer further questions the identity of the man seen on surveillance video throwing bags into a trash container.

Me Kopman mentions that the stranger in question does not wear the same clothes and that his backpack is different from that of his client.

He specifies that his client was arrested in his underwear after his call to 911, but he maintains that the accused could not wait for his brother to attack him when he was almost naked.

There is no evidence that he changed his clotheshe said.

Me Kopman acknowledges that there are discrepancies between his client’s statements to 911 and those at the police station, but he explains that the accused was still in shock after his brother’s attack.

The judge will deliver her verdict on January 9.