The mother of a three-year-old boy who was stabbed repeatedly in the head and neck while lying in his bed has told a trial that the accused threatened her the night her son was attacked.
Clarice Smith testified that her then-boyfriend, Daniel Jensen, said that he was going to have someone take her son away from her.
Jensen, 34, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Hunter Smith-Straight on Oct. 30, 2019.
Smith testified that she and Jensen got into two physical fights at a Winnipeg bar on the night Hunter was attacked.
She said she had told Jensen she was moving with Hunter back to her home community of Manigotagan, about 150 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, without him.
“I don’t know where we were going to go, but I was going to take (Hunter) somewhere … because I didn’t feel safe with Dan,” Smith testified.
“I told him just me and Hunter were going to move to my mom’s,” she said.
“He got mad.”
Smith told the jury Jensen assaulted her, left the bar, and she didn’t see him again that night.
Court also heard from a Winnipeg Police Service officer who helped with the early stages of the investigation.
Det. Sgt. Ward Gordon was tasked with interviewing and collecting a blood sample from a witness who was at the home the night the toddler was attacked.
Gordon told the jury that he was also assigned to find old addresses of Jensen, who became an early suspect.
The Crown has said Jensen attacked the boy as an act of vengeance and that domestic violence is at the heart of the case.
Hunter was taken to hospital and placed on life support due to brain damage from severe blood loss. He was removed from the machines three days later and died.
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