Quebec City sword attacker blames alter ego for killings
CBC
A Quebec City courtroom listened attentively as Carl Girouard, the man accused in the Quebec City sword attacks, talked about fighting an inner battle between two Carls — the real one, and one obsessed with a mission to kill people.
"If I had been the real Carl Girouard, I would've never done [these attacks]," the 26-year-old man testified Thursday morning.
Girouard faces two charges of first-degree murder and five of attempted murder for attacking seven people on Halloween night 2020. While he admits carrying out the attacks, he argues that he can't be held criminally responsible because of his mental state at the time.
Girouard looked alert and appeared to be on the defensive as he answered questions from Crown prosecutor François Godin.
He said the "real Carl" did all it could to stop the attacks, but he was ultimately unable to control the "Carl of the mission."
His mother, Monique Dalphond, could be heard sobbing in the audience while her son provided more details on his mindset that night.
The Crown went through Girouard's actions leading up to the attacks, asking him to explain how it could be that the mission was controlling him when he had taken steps to prepare for it.
Godin asked Girouard if in fact, it wasn't him who was in charge.
After a pause, Girouard testified it was hard for him to put himself back to that time.
He testified the acts came from him, that he wasn't hearing voices or hallucinating. But, he said, "it came from me because I had two Carls."
Girouard admitted to feeling very anxious and scared in the moments before he attacked people. So much so, that he wasn't able to eat the cheese and grapes he had bought at a convenience store on his way to Quebec City from Sainte-Thérèse, Que., near Montreal.
He said the other Carl was the one who forced him to keep going.
As the Crown presented more evidence from the events, the defendant repeatedly insisted he could not remember exactly what he had been thinking at the time.
He could not explain why he researched news websites before the attacks, telling Godin "it's a good question."
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