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Three weeks before John Mcrae knifed his son to death, he feared his drunken son so much that he slept with a baseball bat for protection.
The old ex-con, now 73, could once handle himself with his fists, but these days he gets winded from a flight of stairs.
So he kept a bat close by for fear his son, Michael, would make good on his threats to kill “the rotten old bastard.”
And on the evening of July 7, 2017, after another day of drinking and fighting with his son over rent money for their shared Orléans apartment, Mcrae went first for the bat, then a kitchen knife.
“I was scared. I had nothing to protect myself. He kept saying he was going to kill me,” Mcrae testified in his own defence at his second-degree murder trial on Tuesday.
He said he couldn’t find the bat so he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and confronted his son who was on the lying on the couch watching TV.
“I stabbed him when he stood up,” he recalled.
“Why did you? his lawyer Joseph Addelman asked.
“I was scared of him. The violence in his face and his threats. He stood and that’s when I shoved the knife in him,” he testified calmly.
He then knocked on his roommate’s door and told him to call the police.
“It makes me feel awful … I loved him.”
“So why did you stab him?” his lawyer asked.
“Madness I guess. Alcohol does crazy things to the mind,” he replied.
Mcrae detailed a troubled life of decades lost in booze and hard drugs. He stole to feed his drug habit. First motorcycles, then cars, and later smash-and-grab robberies. He said it was hard trying to raise a young family with no education. His boys ended up in foster care for awhile and Michael lived with his father from the age of 15 until the night he was killed.
They drank together and it was Mcrae who introduced his son to cocaine in the 1980s. “Not proud of it,” he said.
He said he started dealing to finance his own habit.
They both did time for robbing a gas station together in 1993, and while John Mcrae had stayed sober for the past 10 years, his son was out of control — mad drunk and always drunk, Mcrae said.
He said he was afraid of his own son because “he tried to kill me a couple times.”
The jury heard 911 calls in the months leading to the killing, with Mcrae asking for police because his son was trying to bust in the door. In the calls, Michael Mcrae can be heard yelling and swearing in the background.
Mcrae recalled how his son was always demanding money for drugs. He said his son once asked him if he could help him rob a liquor store but he turned down the offer, saying, “I had enough of that crap. It’s not worth it.”
He let his son stay at his apartment because he had nowhere else to go.
“Nobody else wanted him,” he said.
He recalled the time his son came at him with a steak knife and he managed to chase him off with a hockey stick.
He said the fear of his son grew by the day.
“It just kept on getting worse,” he said. “He had that look of death in his eyes.”
He testified about the times he tried to help his son sober up but nothing worked. One month before he killed his son, John Mcrae started drinking again.
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” he told court.
The Crown and police theory is that Mcrae killed his son while he was sleeping out of revenge because he couldn’t beat his son in a fight anymore.
The trial continues.
gdimmock@postmedia.com
http://www.twitter.com/crimegarden
查看原文...
The old ex-con, now 73, could once handle himself with his fists, but these days he gets winded from a flight of stairs.
So he kept a bat close by for fear his son, Michael, would make good on his threats to kill “the rotten old bastard.”
And on the evening of July 7, 2017, after another day of drinking and fighting with his son over rent money for their shared Orléans apartment, Mcrae went first for the bat, then a kitchen knife.
“I was scared. I had nothing to protect myself. He kept saying he was going to kill me,” Mcrae testified in his own defence at his second-degree murder trial on Tuesday.
He said he couldn’t find the bat so he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and confronted his son who was on the lying on the couch watching TV.
“I stabbed him when he stood up,” he recalled.
“Why did you? his lawyer Joseph Addelman asked.
“I was scared of him. The violence in his face and his threats. He stood and that’s when I shoved the knife in him,” he testified calmly.
He then knocked on his roommate’s door and told him to call the police.
“It makes me feel awful … I loved him.”
“So why did you stab him?” his lawyer asked.
“Madness I guess. Alcohol does crazy things to the mind,” he replied.
Mcrae detailed a troubled life of decades lost in booze and hard drugs. He stole to feed his drug habit. First motorcycles, then cars, and later smash-and-grab robberies. He said it was hard trying to raise a young family with no education. His boys ended up in foster care for awhile and Michael lived with his father from the age of 15 until the night he was killed.
They drank together and it was Mcrae who introduced his son to cocaine in the 1980s. “Not proud of it,” he said.
He said he started dealing to finance his own habit.
They both did time for robbing a gas station together in 1993, and while John Mcrae had stayed sober for the past 10 years, his son was out of control — mad drunk and always drunk, Mcrae said.
He said he was afraid of his own son because “he tried to kill me a couple times.”
The jury heard 911 calls in the months leading to the killing, with Mcrae asking for police because his son was trying to bust in the door. In the calls, Michael Mcrae can be heard yelling and swearing in the background.
Mcrae recalled how his son was always demanding money for drugs. He said his son once asked him if he could help him rob a liquor store but he turned down the offer, saying, “I had enough of that crap. It’s not worth it.”
He let his son stay at his apartment because he had nowhere else to go.
“Nobody else wanted him,” he said.
He recalled the time his son came at him with a steak knife and he managed to chase him off with a hockey stick.
He said the fear of his son grew by the day.
“It just kept on getting worse,” he said. “He had that look of death in his eyes.”
He testified about the times he tried to help his son sober up but nothing worked. One month before he killed his son, John Mcrae started drinking again.
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” he told court.
The Crown and police theory is that Mcrae killed his son while he was sleeping out of revenge because he couldn’t beat his son in a fight anymore.
The trial continues.
gdimmock@postmedia.com
http://www.twitter.com/crimegarden
查看原文...
