A 28-year-old Toronto man accused of killing his parents and trying to kill his brother has been found responsible.
The verdict in the judge-alone trial for Alpha Henry was delivered in a Toronto courtroom Thursday afternoon. Alpha has been on trial for two counts of second-degree murder relating to the fatal 2022 stabbing of his parents, Veronica and Colin Henry, and one count of attempted murder relating to his younger brother, Daniel Kwame Henry.
Superior Court Justice Joan Barrett rejected Alpha’s versions of events that his brother was the one responsible, saying Thursday she found Alpha responsible for the unlawful act of stabbing his parents to death and trying to kill his brother.
Alpha’s lawyer had already stated if Barrett found him responsible, they would raise the issue of being not criminally responsible (NCR) and would seek an assessment.
“I do not believe the defendant’s accounts that Daniel attacked him and his parents,” Barrett said Thursday.
“I reject it. It does not accord with reason and common sense.”
On Sept. 21, 2022, at around 1:40 a.m., police were called to unit 417 at 27 Bergamot Ave. in Etobicoke when they found Alpha inside the unit and his parents dead in the bathtub.
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During the trial, Daniel said he had come home to find his brother, who was homeless, brandishing a knife. He said his brother said, “die, bitch” before attacking him with the knife.
Daniel said there was a scuffle, and he managed to wrestle the knife away from Alpha before escaping the apartment, running down the hallway and out a stairwell. He ran to a gas station where he asked a passerby to call 911 because he said he had lost his phone in the commotion.
Assistant Crown attorney Michael Wilson told Barrett that Alpha had used his dead mother’s cellphone to text Daniel while he was away on business, and set up his brother.
But Alpha’s lawyer, Jamie Kopman, argued it was his brother Daniel who killed his parents.
Alpha consistently told police both when he called 911, and later gave a statement to police, that Daniel arrived home and was frustrated to find his parents engaged in prayer. Alpha said it was Daniel who attacked him and killed his parents, before running off with the knife.
But Wilson said that Daniel was out of the country from Sept. 18 to 20, and video surveillance shows he did not return to the apartment until 1:35 a.m. on Sept. 21.
The Crown had argued that Alpha fatally stabbed his parents sometime after 11:52 a.m. on Sept. 19, and afterwards, used his mother’s phone to not only text his brother, but to communicate with individuals for sex services. The bodies, which were doused in gasoline, had been dead for some time when they were found, court heard.
The Crown also argued Alpha used his mother’s key fob to enter his parents’ building. Prior to their deaths, video surveillance showed Alpha was unable to gain access to the building.
“The Crown submits there is motive: he murdered his parents and he knows his brother is coming home, and that’s the reason to end his brother’s life – to avoid liability for his crime,” Wilson said during closing submissions on Nov. 19.
But Kopman pointed to the fact that the forensic pathologist could only say the time of death was sometime after Veronica was last seen or heard from on Sept. 19, and before she was found dead on Sept. 21.
The defence argued there was reasonable doubt as to whether Alpha did it, and there’s an absence of evidence as to whether Daniel was responsible.
“There is a knife found on Daniel Henry. We don’t know whose DNA is found on that knife,” Kopman said Nov. 19.
“There’s no conclusive evidence Alpha cleaned up the scene and was waiting for his brother to come home.”
After Kopman raised the issue of NCR, Wilson told Barrett he was not surprised by the defence’s request, given the Crown anticipated the argument of NCR by reason of a mental disorder would be advanced.
The case will return to court Jan. 17 to argue for an NCR assessment, which the Crown said Thursday it will be opposing.
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