Editor’s note: Some of the details in this story are graphic and disturbing.
VANCOUVER — The last time Chloe and Aubrey Berry were seen alive, they were playing in the snow on Christmas Eve in 2017 outside their father’s Beach Drive apartment in Oak Bay, a B.C. Supreme Court jury heard on Tuesday.
The next evening, first responders entered Andrew Berry’s dark apartment and, with the beams from their flashlights, saw blood on the door and on the walls.
Six-year-old Chloe, still in her pyjamas, was lying dead on a bed. Aubrey was lying on a bed in another room. Like her sister, the four-year-old was dead, still in her pyjamas. A knife was on the floor by the bed.
“On Christmas Day 2017, both girls had been brutally murdered. You are here to decide whether it was, in fact, their father Andrew Berry, the accused, who killed Chloe and Aubrey,” Crown prosecutor Clare Jennings said in her opening remarks at Berry’s second-degree murder trial.
“The Crown theory is that the evidence will show that Mr. Berry did kill Chloe and Aubrey and then injured himself as a means to commit suicide.”
Berry was found naked in a bathtub, close to death. There was blood on the floor and on the walls. Berry had stab wounds to the upper left chest, and his neck and throat, said Jennings.
“Kill me,” and “Leave me alone,” he said to the firefighters who were trying to assist him.
The 14-member jury heard that Chloe was in Grade 1 at Christ Church Cathedral School and loved it. Aubrey would have turned five in January 2018. She attended a Montessori preschool and was flourishing.
The girls lived part-time with their mother, Sarah Cotton, in a house in Oak Bay and part time with their father, Andrew Berry, in a nearby apartment.
Cotton’s partner, Scott Elliott, and her close friend, Trisha Lees, sat in the front row of the public gallery as Jennings outlined the Crown’s theory. Lees — and others sitting in court — cried, wiping away tears as Jennings told the jury how the girls were killed.
During the trial, which is expected to last three to four months, the jury will hear evidence from police officers, firefighters and paramedics who went to the apartment that day, said Jennings.
Oak Bay Police Const. Piotr Ulanowski, the first Crown witness, testified that he and Sgt. Michael Martin were working on Christmas Day when Cotton came to the police station about 4:15 p.m. asking for help because Berry had not returned the girls at noon as he was required to do by court order.
Ulanowski went to Berry’s apartment building at 1400 Beach Dr. He randomly buzzed apartments until someone let him in. The resident who answered the door told him she had heard the girls about 8 a.m. She also told Ulanowski she didn’t think there was any power in the suite.
Ulanowski testified that he knocked on Berry’s door, but there was no answer. He called out in a loud voice, but there was no answer. He called Berry’s cellphone and could hear a melody and a buzzing sound from inside the apartment.
The door was locked, so Ulanowski contacted a property management company and got a key. He entered the suite just before 6 p.m.
“The apartment was completely dark. The wall had blood all over it. There were clothes all over the floor. The apartment was in complete disarray,” Ulanowski testified.
He said that on a bed, he could see a body with matted hair that appeared to be red.
“It was very quiet.”
Ulanowksi called Martin by cellphone, in case Cotton would hear his radio transmissions.
“I remember my adrenaline pumping. I wanted to go in, but at the same time I didn’t want to go in. I didn’t want to believe what I had found,” he said.
Martin arrived and the two officers went in the apartment.
Ulanowski had his flashlight out and his hand on his gun. He walked down the hallway and saw a naked man lying in the bathtub with water up to his shoulders. The bathroom was in complete disarray, he testified. There was blood on the toilet, blood on the floor.
“I yelled: ‘Andrew, Andrew, can you hear me?’ ” said Ulanowski. “There was a gasp for air. He was breathing slowly.”
Berry had cuts and lacerations to the left side of his chest, blood around his neck and his right eye was swollen shut with a golf-ball size black eye, Ulanowski testified.
Ulanowski will continue his testimony today.
During the Crown’s opening statement, Jennings provided the following outline of what witnesses are expected to tell the jury.
Firefighters went through the dark apartment to the bloody bathroom where Berry was in the tub. They drained the water and made plans to transport him to hospital. He told them: “Kill me” and “Leave me alone.”
Two paramedics also said they heard Berry ask them to kill him.
Paramedic Hailey Blackmore went into the bedrooms to see the girls. In each bedroom, she found a small girl, facing away from the door, with bloody clothing and bloody hair and stab wounds on her body. She believed they had been dead for some time.
Berry was taken to hospital, where he was treated for serious injuries to his throat and chest. During his stay in hospital, Berry never mentioned his daughters or asked after them. He complained about his parents and Cotton and how they treated him.
Photos of Chloe and Aubrey, on the beds in the positions they were found, are to be shown.
The jury can expect to see a note found on a table in the living room of Berry’s apartment. The note, addressed to his sister, sets out his complaints about his parents and Cotton.
The Crown will show text messages and emails written by Berry to help the jury understand what was going on in his life during the period leading up to Christmas 2017. The jury will hear that in November 2017, Berry searched the internet for methods of committing suicide.
A forensic pathologist is expected to testify that Chloe died from a number of injuries, including stab wounds and a fractured skull.
“Some of the stab wounds were inflicted before Chloe died, some of them after,” said Jennings.
It’s expected the pathologist will testify that Aubrey died of multiple stab wounds. Again, some of the stab wounds were inflicted before she died, some after.
Cotton is expected to testify about her relationship with her daughters and with Berry, her former common-law husband. Cotton will tell the jury about the court order that was made on May 31, 2017, that set out the parenting schedule.
Other witnesses, including Berry’s former colleagues who worked with him at B.C. Ferries until he resigned in May 2017, are expected to testify that he regularly complained about his parents and Cotton and his ongoing struggle to have access to the children.
One neighbour is expected to testify that she heard loud noises coming from Berry’s apartment at 8 a.m. on Christmas Day. Neither Chloe or Aubrey were seen that day.
A social worker will testify about investigating complaints against Berry that were ultimately determined to be unfounded. But during that time, Berry was prevented from having unsupervised access.
Berry was regularly behind with his rent and was about to be evicted. His power had been cut off, his Visa credit card and line of credit were maxed out, and his bank account was overdrawn.
An employee with the B.C. Lottery Commission is expected to testify that Berry had an account for Play Now, an online gambling site, and he deposited more than $20,000 to that account and withdrew only $9.
A neighbour is expected to testify that he allowed Berry to use his bank account because Berry was having trouble with his own. The neighbour accepted money transfers from Berry’s sister and doled it out at Berry’s direction. And that much of that money was deposited to the Play Now account.
Berry’s sister is expected to testify about his conflict with Cotton and his financial problems.
“When you have heard the Crown’s case, I expect it will be clear to you that Mr. Berry felt a great deal of animosity toward his parents and his former partner, Sarah Cotton. He was in a very significant negative financial situation with no means to support himself or his daughters, without any means to pay Hydro or have it reconnected and no means to pay rent. He’d been warned that without Hydro and without an apartment, he would likely lose custody of the girls, and he had thoughts of suicide,” Jennings said.
