(Trois-Rivières) “My little sister, she had to scotch tape from the feet to the head. All over. Even on the mouth, even on the nose, ”said the Granby girl’s half-brother on Tuesday. The teenager gave powerful testimony in the trial of his mother, who is charged with second degree murder and forcible confinement.
The witness, who is now 16 years old, testifies in another room of the Trois-Rivières courthouse to avoid being in front of his mother, whom he has not seen since his arrest. The accused, as soon as she saw the image of her son on a screen, began to cry silently. She wiped her eyes several times during the story.
The 14 jurors first heard the nearly two-hour statement that the teenager delivered to a police officer on April 29, 2019, the day the 7-year-old victim was found naked, emaciated and lifeless in her bedroom. .
A second video, recorded a few minutes after the first, was also shown in the courtroom. “There is information that I did not say, very, very, very important information,” the teenager told the investigator at the police station.
It was at this point that he revealed that his little sister was “covered” in duct tape “from head to toe”. “I didn’t mean to say it to protect [ceux] that I like a lot. The policeman made sure that no one had forced him to make such a confession.
After the two videos aired, Crown Prosecutor Mr.e Jean-Sébastien Bussières, asked the witness to describe the adhesive tape on the girl’s head. “It was a mummy. You didn’t see her through the tape. There were several layers. Not just one. Several, ”replied the boy. The victim was naked, he said further.
“If we start from the chin, was it covered?” The mouth ? The nose ? The eyes ? Ears ? The hair ? », Listed Me Bussières. The witness answered “yes” to each of the questions.
Four runaway attempts in 24 hours
The 16-year-old looks back on the 24 hours before the discovery of the lifeless girl. He said that the day before the 911 call, his sister tried to exit through her bedroom window four times. The 7-year-old complained of being hungry and tired of being in his room. Her windows were then blocked with furniture to prevent her from running away, he explained.
At 1:30 in the night, the girl still managed to escape. A neighbor also told, earlier in the trial, that the little girl rang at her door in the middle of the night. When he answered, an adult was accompanying her back to her house.
At around 10 a.m. on April 29, 2019, the teenager was awakened by screaming. Her little sister was lifeless. His mother was crying and trying to remove the duct tape covering the child. “She is motionless, pale, her lips a little purple,” he said.
The teenager revealed that he was asked to hide the duct tape. He refused.
Whole days in his room
This 12e trial witness described the victim as “special, not in a good way”. According to her version, the girl was kicked out of school, where she was in first grade, a month before her death. She didn’t listen to teachers, hit friends and stole the contents of lunch boxes, the teen said. “They kicked her out, so my mom had to home school. ”
The teenager said that since the girl left school, she sometimes spent whole days in her room with the door locked, unable to get out. She was locked up because she had started stealing food from the pantry, he said.
The boy said his sister was “addicted” to food and ate “a lot, a lot”. He said his family had seen doctors to try to understand why she was so small.
The victim’s grandmother, who was in the courtroom, jumped a few times during the testimony, most notably when the teenager suggested that her younger sister may have a “mental illness”.
The accused, she stared at the image of her son all day, even during breaks. To the police investigator, the boy described her as a “cool”, “kind” mother who is a “good example”.
Cross-examination will continue on Wednesday. The interview of the victim’s younger brother with the police will also be presented to the jury during the day. The now 6-year-old child will not be questioned by the lawyers, however.