ST. JOHN'S, N.L.—A Crown prosecutor says a Newfoundland man murdered his 5-year-old daughter in a calculated plan to inflict suffering on her mother, his estranged wife.
Trent Butt is accused of the first-degree murder of his daughter, Quinn, and arson of the home he co-owned in Carbonear, N.L.
A St. John’s, N.L., court heard closing arguments today in the first-degree murder of his five-year-old daughter, Quinn.
Butt testified earlier that he did not remember killing Quinn, but said he found himself over her body and concluded he must have suffocated her.
“I concluded I must have suffocated her. I felt sick. I picked her up in my arms and told her over and over again how much I loved her,” Butt said.
As he went on to testify, Butt talked about what he felt that night, the difficulties he was going through. “I wanted the world to know what I was going through,” he said.
Butt then wrote what his defence lawyer, Derek Hogan, describes as a suicide note. The note titled, “Final Words.”
Crown lawyer Lloyd Strickland pointed to the suicide note Butt wrote as proof that he planned to kill Quinn to keep her from her mother.
In the opening of the note, Butt wrote, “After everything I have had to put up with over the last couple of years, at the hands of a horrible, evil excuse of a woman, Andrea Gosse. I have taken my daughters and my own life.”
Butt’s lawyer argued the letter outlined a plan for suicide and not murder, leaving reasons to doubt whether Butt planned the killing in advance.
The defence argues Butt didn’t mean to kill his daughter and doesn’t remember doing it. The jury has begun its deliberations.
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