A Montreal man accused of murdering a federal corrections worker took the stand in his own defence on Monday at a Montreal courthouse.
Forty-nine-year-old Claude Larouche testified he was high on cocaine and crack the night of Natasha Cournoyer’s death, on October 1, 2009.
"Cocaine does bizarre things to you," he told the eight-man, four-woman jury.
Larouche explained that night he consumed around "$500 of cocaine and crack”.
Not satisfied with its quality, he says he called for other drugs and set up an appointment to meet the second dealer.
He headed to the Place Laval parking lot, near the building where Cournoyer worked.
Larouche testified at around 8pm he was sitting inside his minivan waiting when he was "startled by a woman".
He never identified the woman as Cournoyer.
Woman followed him: Larouche
He says they had an exchange of words and pushed each other.
Minutes later, the woman agreed to follow him to his motel room on Des Laurentides Boulevard in Laval.
Larouche told the jury while in the motel room, Cournoyer showed him her breasts, her underwear and later agreed to perform a sexual act on him.
Larouche claims he was confused and intoxicated throughout the night.
At one point, he says, the woman fell to the floor and began bleeding from the nose.
"I then brought her into my truck and I took off," he told the court.
He later admitted dumping Cournoyer’s body into a field in east end Montreal the next morning.
"Claude Larouche never had an intention to kill 37-year-old Natasha Cournoyer," defence lawyer Richard Rougeau told the court at the start of the hearing.
The carpenter is charged with first-degree murder.
Crown prosecutor Eliane Perreault is expected to cross examine Larouche for a part of the afternoon.
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