Alpha Henry sits silently in the prisoner’s box as the prosecutor convincingly sums up the mountain of overwhelming evidence suggesting he was the one — and not his brother Daniel — who slaughtered their parents and then lay in wait to finish off his sibling with the cry, “Die, b–ch.”
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But the accused double murderer still has one more trick up his sleeve.
It’s probably better for him that he doesn’t take the stand at his judge-alone trial — the seemingly tall tale Alpha offered when he did speak back in September 2022 didn’t make much sense. And unfortunately for him, the judge admitted that 90-minute police statement into evidence, finding it was given voluntarily and was not the product of oppressive police conduct.
But in a surprise move at this late date, defence lawyer Jamie Kopman told Justice Joan Barrett that if she does find Alpha killed his father Colin Henry, 68, and his mom, Veronica, 67, and attempted to murder his younger brother Daniel Kwame Henry, that he may argue that his client wasn’t criminally responsible due to a mental disorder and couldn’t form the intent for murder.
First, though, were final submissions as to whether he did it.
His lawyer maintained that it was Alpha’s brother. In his closing argument, prosecutor Michael Wilson argued the right man is on trial and it was Alpha who fatally severed his mom’s jugular vein, and killed his dad with a penetrating jab to his chest.
The Crown began with the bodyworn camera footage of the police officer escorting the homeless Alpha from his squat in a nearby apartment boiler room on Sept. 18 and then surveillance video of a man wearing the same clothing gaining entry to the Rexdale building where his parents lived with his brother just before noon on Sept. 19.
While the forensic pathologist couldn’t nail down the time of their deaths, the Crown said circumstantial evidence points to Alpha killing his parents shortly after he arrived at their apartment armed with a pair of scissors seen on the building’s surveillance video.
From then on, Wilson said, his mother missed her usual daily prayer call with a friend, Alpha used her fob repeatedly to enter the building, and her phone to contact escort agencies and to find out when his flight attendant brother was returning from Japan.
“It was a set up,” the prosecutor charged.
He alleged it’s Alpha on video throwing something in the dumpster behind the apartment – likely bloody sheets – and over the next two days, going to Canadian Tire to buy knives and twice to Esso to purchase two jerrycans full of gas — the bodies of his parents were found in the bathtub, doused in gasoline.
The Crown said all his errands, allegedly captured on video, showed him now wearing clothes and shoes that his brother has identified as belonging to either their mother or father.
After Daniel Kwame Henry arrived home at about 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 21, he said his brother suddenly jumped him and after a struggle, he managed to wrestle the weapon away and fled.
The knife, Wilson said, was one of three purchased by Alpha from Canadian Tire.
Meanwhile, Alpha made two 911 calls pinning the murders on his brother. In his police statement, he claimed Daniel had come home angry and after a quarrel with his parents, began to attack them. After killing them, he must have moved them into the bathtub.
Video surveillance, though, suggests his brother was only in the building for five minutes — or seven at the max.
Yet Alpha told police that in what appears to be just a few minutes, Daniel arrived home, argued with his mom, stabbed her and then his father, moved the bodies to the tub, found gas and poured it over their bodies “for reasons unknown,” managed to clean up the hallway, put a clean fitted sheet over the bloody mattress and then ran out of the building.
“That number of things in that amount of time,” Wilson said, “is a physical impossibility. The only available inference to Your Honour, just on that assertion itself, is that this is a lie on the part of Mr. Alpha Henry.. and positive evidence of his guilt.”
The judge will rule in January.