The trial for a Fort Saskatchewan father charged with murdering his infant son and assaulting his young daughter continued Wednesday with the victim’s mother giving emotional testimony on the stand.
Global News cannot reveal names in this case due to a court-ordered publication ban protecting the identities of the children involved.
READ MORE: Fort Saskatchewan father on trial for killing infant son, assaulting young daughter
The mother took the stand as a witness for the Crown, detailing an argument with the accused the night before things turned deadly.
Finances were tight and the woman said she’d just discovered her partner had charged around $200 on her debit card — money she’d carefully budgeted.
She said the man was buying cigarettes, something she’d told him repeatedly they couldn’t afford.
The disagreement pushed her to a breaking point.
“I told him I couldn’t do it anymore,” she told the jury.
The woman said the accused was on edge the next morning, and she was still mad at him.
While home on her lunch break, the mother said the accused threw a plate at her, missing her and hitting the wall instead.
She eventually conceded, giving the man her debit card, so he could go purchase cigarettes.
A few hours later, back at work, the mother got a phone call that she thought was a sick joke.
Openly crying in the courtroom, she recounted the conversation: “He told me that my baby was dying and… I needed to come home right away. I was like, ‘What’s going on? he said ‘I don’t know, he just started bleeding.'”
She said she rushed home from work and started doing CPR on her one- year-old son, before paramedics came and whisked him away in an ambulance.
“I tried, but I’m pretty sure he was already gone,” she explained.
Soon after, her partner was arrested. The 33-year-old Fort Saskatchewan father stands accused of second-degree murder in his infant son’s death, as well as assaulting his five-year-old daughter.
On Monday, the defense said its client admits to killing his son, but that he isn’t a murderer because he didn’t know what he was doing, due to a sleep disorder.
The young daughter is also expected to testify at this trial, which is slated to last six weeks.