Young girl describes father's attack on her and her baby brother at Edmonton murder trial
CBC
With heartbreaking innocence, a five-year-old girl told an RCMP officer that less than 24 hours earlier her father was punching her and her baby brother.
Her brother was in heaven now, she told the investigator with the Zebra Child Protection Centre in a 40-minute videotape played in front of a jury Thursday.
"That's sad," she said.
The girl, now seven, testified Thursday at her father's second-degree murder trial. He is also charged with assaulting her.
The father cannot be named as the court issued a publication ban on the identity of the children who share the same name.
On a Saturday afternoon in November 2019, the father was home alone with his daughter and one-year-old son.
The girl was sitting up asleep on one couch in the townhouse living room while her father slept on another and her brother played on a blanket on the floor, she told Cpl. Angela Heath in the videotape.
"I see that you have a mark on your face," Heath said.
"Last night daddy was punching me and [my brother]," the girl said in a quiet voice.
With careful prodding, she described for Heath harrowing details including when the father was kicking the baby and throwing the boy onto the couch.
The little girl said that her father turned his attention to her.
"He punched me in the head and cheek," she said. "Three times."
At the start of the trial, the father's lawyer told the jury his client had killed the little boy, but was not aware of his actions at the time because he was in a sleep-like automaton state.
In the videotaped interview the day after the killing, Heath asked the little girl, "Was your daddy asleep or awake when he punched you?"
