Accused killer ran away after ‘check up’ on three-year-old

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This article was published 22/09/2021 (1449 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DANIEL Jensen returned home to “check up” on three-year-old Hunter Smith-Straight 45 minutes before the boy was found clinging to life with a knife in his neck, jurors heard Tuesday.

The 34-year-old is on trial charged with first-degree murder in the October 2019 slaying.

Jensen, who had been in a relationship with Hunter’s mother for several months, treated him “like his own kid,” the boy’s then-15-year-old cousin told Winnipeg police in a video interview recorded hours after the killing and played for jurors Tuesday.

Prosecutors allege Jensen killed Hunter in a drive to hurt his mother, Clarice Smith, “in the cruellest and most permanent way.”

Earlier in the trial, Smith testified Jensen assaulted her at the Northern Hotel bar after she told him she and Hunter were moving out of their Pritchard Avenue home to live with her mother in Manigotagan.

Jensen left the bar on his own and walked back to Smith’s home, where prosecutors allege he stabbed Hunter six times in the head and neck as the boy slept before fleeing the house.

Jurors have heard Smith, Hunter, a nephew and Jensen lived in a second-floor suite, while Smith’s sister, boyfriend and several nieces and nephews lived in a main-floor suite of the home. Jurors have been told no one had a key to the house and people had to knock on a door or window to be let inside.

In a video interview, Hunter’s then-15-year-old cousin told police she had been drawing and listening to music in the main-floor living room around 1:30 a.m., when she heard a knock on the door and asked an older male cousin to answer it.

“When (the cousin) came back, he said it was just Dan and he wanted to check up on Hunter,” the girl told police.

Fifteen or 20 minutes later she heard the front door close, she said.

“I looked out the window and saw Dan walk out of the yard,” she said. “Once he was across the street he started running away. I didn’t think anything of it and just went on until my mom came home.”

She said when her mother arrived home about 45 minutes later, she and a few other family members “peeked” into Hunter’s room and didn’t immediately see anything amiss.

“We all just thought he was sleeping” until a couple of minutes later when another cousin walked into the bedroom to check on Hunter “and started screaming and crying,” she said.

Hunter was rushed to Health Sciences Centre suffering massive blood loss and brain damage. He was taken off life support two days later and died.

The trial continues.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca