“I’ve had my day in court.”
That remark to a reporter, made by accused murderer Rick Patrick, best summed up his second-degree murder trial as he finished his testimony in a Barrie courtroom on Friday.
Barring any unforeseen developments, Patrick’s two days on the witness stand represents the last evidence in the Superior Court jury trial that is being heard before Justice Clyde Smith.
Patrick is charged with killing Christopher Forrester nine days before Christmas in 2021. The 68-year-old retired Midland man has plead not guilty and is claiming he acted in self-defence.
Forrester, a 36-year-old Orillia native who had been living in a trailer owned by Patrick in Midland at the time of his death, was killed by a single stab wound that pierced his heart.
Most of Patrick’s time on the stand was spent being cross-examined by Crown attorney Dennis Chronopoulos.
“It wasn’t this person running into you, (instead) you stabbed the knife into (Forrester)," Chronopoulos challenged Patrick near the end of proceedings on Friday.
“Definitely not, sir,” Patrick responded from the stand. “I had no intention of hurting someone.”
A day earlier the jury heard Patrick describe arriving home just past 10 p.m. on Dec. 16 to find a dark figure hunched over at the end of his driveway.
That person, who Patrick said he at first could not identify, came at him quickly with a raised arm. In response, Patrick said he reached into a Jobmate bag — a brand commonly sold at Canadian Tire — he was carrying and grabbed a knife to defend himself.
Patrick claimed the confrontation on his driveway happened so quickly he could not remember much aside from being blocked from getting away by his own car door, which also created force that contributed to the fatal wound as it was struck.
Chronopoulos also questioned Patrick’s evidence relating to the sequence of the confrontation.
“it all happened in milliseconds. Obviously I was able to get the knife (out of the bag),” said Patrick, when Chronopoulos asked him when he retrieved the weapon, which he says Forrester had given to him as a Christmas present.
Aside from the driveway clash that resulted in Forrester’s death, the Crown spent much more time trying to drill down on the acrimony in their landlord-tenant relationship.
Beginning just past lunch on Thursday and continuing for much of Friday, Chronopoulos tried to establish that Patrick’s anger boiled over not because of fearing for his safety on his driveway, but rather because of the year-plus the accused had spent trying to evict Forrester.
The accused’s various responses regarding that subject on Friday weren’t much different than they were on Thursday — that he didn’t remember precise details — but Patrick maintained he wanted Forrester out and he was concerned how his former friend would react whenever he made moves to evict him.
“He was not of his right mind, (his behaviour) made me scared,” testified Patrick, on redirect examination by his defence lawyer, Alison Craig.
The Crown’s position is that Forrester was holding up the sale of the trailer, which Patrick acknowledged he had in place for more than a year but couldn’t close the deal because Forrester was still living there.
Forrester had just completed a conditional sentence for assault bodily harm around the time his relationship with Patrick started to fray. He was also wanted on a mischief charge for slashing a tire on a vehicle owned by Patrick at the time of his death.
It was suggested by the defence and acknowledged by the Crown — but not necessarily accepted — that Forrester had cut the cable cord servicing Patrick’s residence.
Those two matters were unresolved at the time of Forrester’s death as was a scheduled meeting between the deceased and accused at the Landlord and Tenant tribunal that was slated for January, 2022.
Smith told the jury on Friday before dismissing them for the day that he will hold a legal conference on Monday with the Crown and defence outside of their presence. Closing submissions in front of the jury will follow on Tuesday. Smith will charge the jury thereafter and the case is expected to be in its hands to consider the verdict on Wednesday.
