Parricide in Toronto: police were unaware that the accused could have mental problems

In Toronto, at the Alpha Henry murder trial, the accused’s defense showed on Friday that the police interrogation was not carried out according to the rules of the art, because it did not suspected no underlying mental illness in his client. The 30-year-old is accused of stabbing his parents to death and attacking his brother in 2022.

The bodies of Colin and Veronica Henry were discovered stabbed and doused in gasoline in the bathtub of their apartment in the Rexdale neighborhood on the night of September 21, 2022.

Their eldest son, Alpha Henry, was arrested and hospitalized in Etobicoke for a hand injury he said was sustained in a knife fight with his brother Daniel, an Air Canada flight attendant at the time. .

During his cross-examination, the detective Michael McGinn asserts to the defense that the accused appeared sane when he questioned him at the police station after his discharge from the hospital.

He had received stitcheshe recalls, adding that a police officer had read the individual his rights before proceeding with the interview.

Mental health unknown

The detective McGinn admits that he did not ask the accused whether the hospital had given him any medication after treating his hand.

He admits that he did not question the two police officers who accompanied him to the emergency room that night about it either.

McGinn adds, however, that the police officers who briefly questioned him in his parents’ home did not write anything abnormal about the accused’s mental health when filling out their report.

All the boxes on this subject were checked negativelyhe declared, admitting that he had not spoken to his colleagues either.

The detective assures that he did not detect anything that would suggest that the accused was suffering from any disorder when he entered the interrogation room.

The detective McGinn admits, however, that he did not call the hospital to find out if the staff had given him medication.

He claims that the accused had slept for 24 hours before the interrogation. His behavior was normal and he understood my questionshe emphasizes.

He nevertheless mentions that the individual did not understand the difference between a Crown and defense lawyer.

Alpha said the lawyer he called told him he couldn’t represent him because he was going to be a Crown prosecutor, hence his confusion.he explains.

Video of the interrogation

We hear the accused pleading his innocence by blaming the crime on his brother Daniel. Alpha says Daniel injured him with a knife during an attack before fleeing.

He claims that his brother returned from Japan, was angry and aggressive in nature, and attacked his parents after an argument with his mother.

She told him she didn’t understand why he served meals on planes instead of sitting in the pilot’s seatthe accused told the police.

The detective McGinn explains that he was skeptical of such a scenario, because it seemed insane.

Alpha told me that he couldn’t have committed the double murder because his hand was injured; however, his brother’s attack had not yet taken place according to the sequence of events that he had presented to mehe declares.

McGinn explains that the accused did not understand why the police did not intend to release him after the interrogation. I have to notify the family and prepare for my parents’ funeralhe said.

Alpha kept repeating that he was the victim in this whole thing.he concludes.

The detective had claimed, earlier at the end of the Crown’s questioning, that the accused had used his mother’s phone to call escort services.

McGinn had shown the court the calls in question on a cellular communications log that night.

Mistaken identity

The defense claims that the murderer is rather the brother of its client, Daniel, whom it accuses of having reversed the roles.

However, Daniel Henry explained at the start of the trial that he had returned from Japan on the evening of September 20, 2022 and that he had gone to dinner before returning to the apartment where he lived with his parents when his older brother attacked with a knife.

He said he did not know at the time that his parents had been murdered and that he fled to a gas station to ask for 911 to be called.

However, Alpha Henry, who had remained in the apartment, had also called 911.

Police responded to both calls. Daniel Henry was arrested at the gas station before being released and police found Alpha Henry in shock in their parents’ apartment.

The Crown believes the victims were killed on September 19, 2022, two days before their bodies were discovered, and that the accused called escort agencies to inquire about prices for a prostitute.

However, the Crown had suggested that Veronica Henry was a pious woman in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and that she therefore could not have made this type of call.

Alpha Henry then allegedly waited for his brother on the evening of September 20 before attacking him while the bodies of their parents were lying in the bath, where they had been doused with gasoline in order to be burned.

A container was found in the apartment, but the accused explained to the police that he had bought gasoline for his brother’s car before the prices rose at the pump.