Dad on trial for stabbing deaths of 3-year-old daughter, 5-year-old son (St. Jerome, Quebec, Canada)

Be warned before you read the article below; the details could be triggering.

Dad GUY TURCOTTE is currently on trial for the stabbing deaths of his 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. He apparently killed them to punish his wife for leaving his sorry @$$. It seems the children were visiting him or otherwise in his care at the time of the murders, though this isn't explored here.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Jury+hears+grim+details+kids+deaths/4687052/story.html

Jury hears grim details of kids' deaths
Last moments filled with terror; As Turcotte weeps in the prisoner's box, multiple stabbings of children are detailed

By SUE MONTGOMERY, Gazette Justice Reporter April 28, 2011

ST. JÉRÔME - The image is one few in the courtroom will be able to erase from their minds: Anne-Sophie Turcotte, whose 3-year-old world was filled with Caillou and Winnie the Pooh, gripping her head and tearing out her hair as her father stabbed her 19 times.

During what has to date been the most difficult day of Guy Turcotte's first-degree murder trial, jury members heard Wednesday how the 36-pound child and her helpless brother Olivier, 5, died in their beds after struggling to shield themselves from their father, a cardiologist apparently distraught that his wife left him for another man.

Olivier, who would have turned 8 Wednesday, weighed 64 pounds when he was stabbed 27 times on his front, back and hands.

Anne-Sophie, stabbed in the chest, stomach and lower abdomen, was found naked - save for a pair of panties - with her left hand above her head, her right arm bent to touch her shoulder. Strands of her own hair were found in her tiny fists - a sign of distress, a biologist told Quebec Superior Court in St. Jérôme.

"It happens sometimes in these cases where the victim will grab his or her head and tear some hair out," François Julien told the hushed courtroom, as Turcotte, 39, cried in the prisoner's box.

Anne-Sophie had cuts on her hands and most likely rolled to her side on her bed, where her chest and stomach wounds left a large puddle of blood. She then returned to her back and endured another round of stabbings, Julien said.

A blood stain on the side of her mattress matched one found on the left knee of Turcotte's pants, suggesting he had knelt in a pool of Anne-Sophie's blood, then standing beside her bed, leaned over her to stab her, Julien testified.

Both the Crown and defence admit that Turcotte, a former cardiologist at St. Jérôme's Hôtel Dieu Hospital, killed his two children sometime between Feb. 21 and 22, 2009. What the jury must determine at the end of the sevenweek long trial is whether he meant to kill them.

Two knives were found in the house and pathologist André Bourgault testified Wednesday that the size of the stab wounds suggested the smaller knife - a bit bigger than a paring knife - was used.

And while he couldn't say with certainty when the children died, he said they didn't die instantaneously. Olivier was found on his bed in another room, his right arm covered in blood from the hand to just below the shoulder.

"This suggests he probably had his right arm over his chest," Julien said.

Tiny drops of blood splattered on the sheets and Turcotte's shirt came from Olivier's mouth, as he struggled to breathe with injured lungs, Julien told the seven-woman, five-man jury, who remained composed throughout.

The boy was on his side for some time before returning to his back and the position in which he was found.

A large knife, partly concealed by Olivier's bleeding torso and flecked with the same blood droplets, was found on the bed.

"Nothing suggests to me that this knife had been used," Julien said, explaining that if it had been used, it would look as though it had been wiped.

The jury has already heard during the first six days of testimony that Turcotte and his wife, Isabelle Gaston, had recently split and Gaston was seeing another man.

On the evening of Feb. 21, 2009, Turcotte spoke at length by phone with his mother, expressing his distress over the relationship. The next day, worried about her son's state of mind, Marguerite Fournier and her husband drove to their son's rented Piedmont home.

When they couldn't open the door or reach their son by phone, they called police, who made the horrific discovery inside.

Turcotte, who was hiding under the master bed, was arrested and taken to hospital. There, his shocked colleagues tried to deal with the surreal situation.

Turcotte wanted to die and said he'd drunk about two litres of windshield wiper fluid.

Earlier on Wednesday, Sylvain Harvey, an investigator with the Sûreté du Québec, showed the court an inventory of things he seized from Turcotte's home.

A near-empty plastic jug of purple Pacer windshield wiper fluid, a receipt dated Feb. 20, 2009, for $45.24 from Video Zone and a printout from a Google search on narcissistic personalities were found in the isolated home.