By Canadian Press

B.C. father charged with murdering daughters says suicide note was old

Aug 22, 2019 | 3:22 PM

VANCOUVER — A Vancouver Island man who is accused of killing his two young daughters has told a jury that a suicide note police found at the scene was a month old.

Andrew Berry has pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and is on the witness stand in his own defence.

Court has already heard that police found six-year-old Chloe Berry and four-year-old Aubrey Berry stabbed to death in their beds on Christmas Day 2017, while Berry was found injured in his tub.

Berry has denied he killed the girls then tried to kill himself, and his lawyer has instead suggested he was attacked by a loan shark to whom Berry owed money. Berry has said he was a problem gambler and owed $25,000 to a guy named Paul.

Earlier in the trial, the jury heard police found a note at the crime scene addressed to Berry’s sister that detailed grievances with relatives and the girls’ mother. 

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“Betrayed, bullied, and miscast I set out to leave with the kids,” the letter read. “But I thought it better for myself and kids to escape.”

The note contained Berry’s passwords and banking information.

But Berry testified Thursday that he wrote the letter a month earlier, when he tried to kill himself but survived.

Berry has already testified that, while he and the girl’s mother had a difficult relationship at times, he had a happy life with the two girls.

He described going camping with them, reading books before bedtime and taking the girls to school. Chloe was outgoing while Aubrey was shy, he said.

He choked up several times Thursday as he described the hours before the were killed.

On Christmas Eve they went swimming and sledding, he said. They then built a snowman and were out as late as midnight.

The girls woke up between 7 and 8 a.m. on Christmas Day, opened their presents and had oatmeal for breakfast before going out to play in the snow again at a golf course.

His testimony continues Thursday afternoon.

The Canadian Press