Key takeaways:
- Carl Girouard is apprehended with two tallies of 1st-degree killing and five counts of attempted killing.
- On Monday, Carl Girouard, 26, was there at the Quebec City courthouse for the first day of his trial hearing.
It took less than an hour to set the 12 jurors for the trial of Carl Girouard, the 26-year-old-man charged with murdering two people and hurting five more with a sword in Quebec City’s historic district on the evening of Halloween 2020.
“The question you’ll have to reply is whether the charged suffered from a mental illness at that time,” said Crown prosecutor François Godin as he managed the jury on Monday.
“I ask you to use your common sense and understanding throughout [the trial].”
Girouard admits having committed the actions he is charged with but plans to plead not condemnable to two counts of first-degree killing and five counts of attempted killing because he says his mental state stopped him from being criminally liable.
The Crown will discuss Girouard was sane and utterly conscious of his actions and that he had planned their numerous years.
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Godin said that Girouard used brutality because he thought it offered superiority over others. “He liked to be an agent of chaos,” he stated.
The Crown will prove that Girouard had planned to do something like this before turning 25 and had several tattoos removed beforehand.
Godin said he would introduce eyewitnesses, videos, and photos in chronological order. The burden of evidence depends only on the Crown.
‘A sword, it can harm people when it’s close’
Hugo Mercier Villeneuve, a counselor at an adult school, was the first eyewitness to testify, followed by Girouard in 2014.
During a meeting with Mercier Villeneuve in December 2014, Girouard told the counselor about a story he had written concerning a costumed character with a sword, with whom he recognized and who had murdered two people.
Source – cbc.ca
