Barbara Cabala has maintained throughout her Superior Court manslaughter trial her mother attacked her and she was defending herself during a fight that left her mother dead.
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But during the second day of cross-examination Tuesday, assistant Crown attorney James Spangenberg suggested photos of the crime scene, the autopsy and of Barbara Cabala reveal a different narrative.
“The whole self-defence story you’ve presented, that’s not honest, and I am going to suggest to you that you were the main aggressor and that your mother was the one who was defending herself,” Spangenberg said.
“That is absolutely not true,” Cabala replied.
Cabala, 43, has pleaded not guilty at the jury trial that began more than two weeks ago. Her mother Elzbieta, 59, was found dead in her Wilkins Street townhouse on July 7, 2021, after Barbara Cabala made an urgent 911 call, reporting she and her mother had a fight after her mother attacked her and she wasn’t breathing.
Police and other emergency personnel found Barbara Cabala lying on the floor near the front door with her cellphone still connected to the 911 dispatcher. Her mother was in the back near the patio door on the floor with blood, dirt and broken pottery all around her. She had no vital signs.
The jury also heard Cabala’s mother died of external pressure to the neck, and had more than 55 injuries.
During the trial, the jury has learned the Cabalas came to Canada as Polish refugees, that Cabala’s mother was divorced from her husband and that Cabala is an only child.
Cabala told the jury she has a university science degree and had worked in quality control until she was sidelined with a brain tumour. She also suffered a miscarriage and her long-term common-law relationship ended in the months before her mother’s death and she was working at Canadian Tire.
She and her mother had a tumultuous relationship and Cabala said – in both her police statement played for the jury earlier in the trial and during her testimony – her mother frequently criticized her about personal issues.
She had moved in with her mother about a month before her mother’s death, hoping to use the home as a short-term landing pad until she got on her feet again.
But on an evening when she was getting ready to watch the Stanley Cup finals at a neighbourhood bar, Cabala said her mother began criticizing her, suggested she was an alcoholic and said she knew why her partner had left her.
She testified the comment “made her sad,” and her reply was, “Say that to my face,” which triggered her mother to attack her by hitting, throwing flower pots and strangling her. Cabala said her response was simply to protect herself. She insisted her mother was still alive when she made the 911 call.
Spangenberg showed the jury side-by-side images of photos of Cabala, taken at London police headquarters after her arrest, and of her mother’s injuries, taken during the autopsy.
He compared injuries to their heads and neck, suggesting Barbara Cabala was relatively “unscathed” while her mother suffered extensive cuts, bruises and abrasions.
Cabala said some of her bruises emerged later after she was remanded to the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre, but no photos were taken. She agreed there would have to be significant pressure applied to her mother’s neck to cause the injuries.
The autopsy photos show two large gashes to Cabala’s mother’s scalp while, despite Cabala’s assertions she had a headache for a month because her mother hit her in the head with a pot, the photos revealed a small birth mark and no significant injury. Cabala said she hit her mother once in the head with a terracotta pot and didn’t know how her mother got the second gash.
“It all happened so quickly and I was being attacked. I wasn’t taking notes, I was just trying to stop her from hurting me and I was terrified,” she said.
Spangenberg said the photos suggest a different explanation. “This is why I am suggesting to you that these pictures tell a story of violence where you are the aggressor, you are the attacker. You lost it and you attacked her and killed her,” Spangenberg said.
“No, I was simply trying to stop her from attacking me, which required a lot of force because, despite having hit her, it didn’t stun her. Despite having to claw her face and her neck to stop her from attacking me, she kept coming at me,” Cabala said.
Spangenberg suggested Cabala was under stress from living with her “nagging” mother “and it was starting to get to you.”
That evening, he continued, Cabala’s mother made a deep cutting comment about her failed relationship. “She was in your face and you just snapped.
“You were the one being the most aggressive, throwing pots, hitting her with pots .. and then when she tried to defend herself and reached out to you, you just strangled her to death,” he said.
“And you did that in a fit of rage.”
Cabala said the suggestion was “not true… I was terrified. I was not angry. I (defecated) my pants. That’s how scared I was.”
Spangenberg went further, suggesting after she saw that her mother was dead, she “wandered around the house in a panic” long enough to come up with a self-defence story before calling 911 and then “staged a fainting at the front door.”
“You staged this because in your mind, considering all the options, the best thing you had going for you was self-defence,” he said.
Cabala disagreed. “I have never been in trouble with the law. I did not know that was even an option. I was just simply saying what happened… that I had been attacked by her.”
Cabala is the only witness for the defence. The jury was told to return on Thursday for closing arguments and Justice Patricia Moore’s final instructions before deliberations.