An Oak Bay father accused of murdering his two young daughters on Christmas Day 2017 is back under cross-examination Tuesday.
A Crown prosecutor questioned key parts of Andrew Berry’s testimony during the second full day of cross-examination at his second-degree murder trial Monday.
On Tuesday, that line of questioning is expected to continue.
Patrick Weir suggested to Berry that Paul, the loan shark he says he owed $25,000 in gambling debts, doesn’t exist, and neither do Paul’s two henchmen, who Berry said visited his home with bags he assumed contained drugs.
Berry disagreed with the suggestion.
Berry has pleaded not guilty in the deaths of his two daughters, four year-old Aubrey and six year-old Chloe, whose bodies were found in their beds in his Beach Drive apartment. A pathologist testified they had both been stabbed multiple times.
On Tuesday morning, during cross-examination, Crown Counsel Patrick Weir challenged Berry on his version of events leading up to and after his daughters’ deaths.
Weir also questioned Berry about his state of mind in the hours before the girls were killed, suggesting that he was depressed and lonely about his bleak prospects for Christmas when his girls were scheduled to head off for the remainder of the day with their mother.
Weir put to Berry, “It must have been pretty depressing, Mr. Berry, I suggest, to know that once you dropped the girls off at this house that’s going to be filled with Christmas cheer and presents, you were going to be coming back to your dark apartment and perhaps look forward to potato flakes for dinner. Would you agree with that?"
Berry replied, "I’d been that way for a while."
When Weir asked if he had been depressed for a while, he responded, "I was getting better."
Berry’s cross-examination is scheduled to continue Tuesday afternoon.
CTV News is covering the trial live. The latest updates are below, starting at 10 a.m.:
