Woman who killed man awaits jury’s decision

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This article was published 02/10/2018 (2725 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg mother who admitted fatally stabbing a man, later telling police, “He molested my son; he deserved to die,” now waits for a jury to decide whether she intended to commit murder.

Bernadette Neepin is accused of second-degree murder in the March 8, 2016, death of 45-year-old Frederick Bird. Bird’s family and Neepin’s supporters packed a Winnipeg courtroom Tuesday to hear Crown and defence lawyers address the jury for the last time.

Defence lawyer Greg Brodsky said Neepin admits she’s guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter, but argued she shouldn’t be found guilty of murder because she didn’t have the intent to kill in mind — either she was too drunk or she was provoked and acted in the heat of the moment.

Crown prosecutors argued Neepin should be found guilty of murder because she acted in a “calculated” way and killed an innocent man after she assumed she saw Bird touching her four-year-old son’s “private parts” under a blanket.

“She assumed the worst, and she wants you to assume the worst,” Crown attorney Melissa Serbin told jurors.

Over the past week, the jury heard from police and from a toxicologist, but the key testimony came from Neepin, who testified in her defence, and Neepin’s friend, Robert McDonald, who witnessed the stabbing and testified for the Crown.

Both testified they were hanging out at Neepin’s home on Allenby Crescent the evening of March 8, 2016. Neepin invited McDonald and his friend, Bird, to her home, where she made stew and they drank alcohol together.

Neepin testified McDonald wanted her to make a second trip to the liquor store, and when she returned she said she saw Bird inappropriately touching her four-year-old son on the living room couch.

The boy was sitting with his legs on Bird’s lap and had a blanket over him. Neepin said she was sure she saw the blanket moving up and down.

She went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife off the counter, went back to the living room and asked her son if Bird had touched him. The boy said yes — and Neepin said she remembers raising the knife but “blacked out” and doesn’t remember the stabbing.

McDonald testified he was upstairs when he heard Neepin ask the boy if Bird touched him, but said he never saw Bird touch the child inappropriately. After the stabbing, McDonald said, he heard the four-year-old say, “Just kidding, mommy.”

“I don’t know how many mothers there are on this jury, but how would you feel if your son was being molested in your presence?” Brodsky asked the jury Tuesday. “She’s not trying to blame it on anyone else. She said, ‘I did what I did in order to protect my son.’”

The Crown questioned why Neepin would take the time to walk to the kitchen and get a knife instead of immediately pulling her son away from Bird or yelling at him to stop.

Neepin is accused of stabbing Bird while her son was still next to him. Police who responded to the crime scene saw the boy covered in blood.

“She did what she did because she was in a panic,” Brodsky told jurors.

Neepin, sitting in the prisoner’s box, was crying during the hearing. Serbin argued Neepin’s story is “contrived,” and she urged the jury not to make a decision out of sympathy.

“My learned friend made a good point… What would you do when you see your child, or any child, being physically hurt? What’s your instinctual, gut reaction? You run to the child. You get them out of harm’s way,” Serbin said. “You don’t turn your back on a four-year-old and walk — not run — walk to a different room where you can’t see them anymore, arm yourself and still not grab them out of the way.

“If we believe what Ms. Neepin is telling you she saw, she defied all basic human instinct. What does your common sense tell you?”

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Gerald Chartier is set to give the jury legal instructions today before jurors begin deliberations.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay