Skip to main content
Open this photo in gallery:

Sarah Cotton holds her daughters Chloe, left, and Aubrey Berry in October 2017 in this handout photo.Ryan MacDonald/The Canadian Press

A Crown attorney says a man accused of killing his two daughters resented his former wife and that was the motive for the murders.

Patrick Weir alleged in his closing arguments today in B.C. Supreme Court that Andrew Berry is responsible for the deaths of his daughters on Christmas Day in 2017 in Oak Bay, near Victoria.

Berry has pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of four-year-old Aubrey Berry and six-year-old Chloe Berry.

He testified that he owed thousands of dollars to a loan shark named Paul and that he was attacked in his apartment by a “dark haired, dark skinned” man on the day of his daughters’ deaths.

But Weir asserted to the jury that Berry had been harbouring “anger and resentment” towards his ex-wife, Sarah Cotton.

He suggested that Berry would lose custody of the girls after that Christmas, and alleged that the father resolved if he couldn’t be with his daughters then Cotton couldn’t either.

Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe