Christopher Husbands thought he was going to die.
The accused Eaton Centre killer wears a royal blue suit, white shirt and tie as he sits in the witness box and calmly recounts the harrowing attack he suffered a few months before he opened fire in the crowded food court and killed two men.
The Crown contends the shooting was cold-blooded payback for the ambush that left him with 20 stab wounds, his own brand of “street justice” brazenly executed in the middle of a busy mall.
Husbands, 29, has admitted fatally shooting Nixon Nirmalendran, 22, and Ahmed Hassan, 25, and wounding five others in the wild spray of bullets on June 2, 2012, but says he’s not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.
His lawyers insist he was suffering from PTSD following the terrifying incident and snapped when he spotted some of his attackers.
Now was his chance to convince the jury that after a childhood of trauma, their vicious attack left him mentally shattered.
Led by questions from lawyer Dirk Derstine, Husbands first described growing up in Guyana with a crack-addicted mom who’d abandon him and his three siblings for up to a month at a time.
Eventually his father sent for them and at 11, he arrived in Regent Park.
“I had a pretty rough time,” he recalled. “I was lost.”
His dad worked nights and was often absent and resentful. He witnessed racism for the first time and saw a man killed before his eyes at 13.
Is it surprising that he fell into the life? Husbands sold crack — but also worked for the city at an after-school program.
He got expelled from high school — but managed to get into a college program.
He had ambitions.
“I really wanted to make something of my life.”
On Feb. 28, 2012, he was heading to a Gerrard St. apartment. A former lover — and mother of one of his friends — had promised a gift for his 23rd birthday. He was also going to meet childhood friend Nixon Nirmalendran who’d asked to borrow money.
Nirmalendran had recently assured him there was no truth to rumours he was angry with him.
So Husbands had no idea he was walking into an ambush.
“I felt a hand grab me. I felt something hit me at the right side of my head,” he told the jury with little emotion.
The masked men called him a snake and told him he’d disrespected them. “None of which made any sense to me.”
They punched and kicked him. They duct taped his feet and arms and tried to tape his face as well. “I was panicking. I was obviously afraid.”
One of them put a .45 calibre gun to his head and said, “Four-five to the dome” before pistol whipping him on the side of his mouth, cracking his tooth.
He was carried to the bathroom where they’d filled the bathtub. “I was thinking, ‘Holy sh-t.’ I was panicking. They were trying to drown me.”
He managed to break free only to be caught and thrown down on his stomach in a bedroom.
“There was constant pounding on my back. I started twitching. It must have hit my spine. I felt like my body was convulsing.”
The photos show an apartment drenched in blood. He’d survive almost two dozen stab wounds.
Husbands refused to identify his attackers to police, but recognized Nirmalendran and his brother, his lover’s son as well as other acquaintances from the neighbourhood.
He began outlining his symptoms of PTSD.
“I was pretty depressed, I was having problems sleeping, nightmares, flashbacks. I was blaming myself. I wasn’t in the best emotional state.”
He wouldn’t sit on the couch because it was in the line of fire if someone shot through his door.
He put a penny-filled wine glass by the balcony so he’d get a warning if someone tried to break in. He had panic attacks in crowded places and was drinking daily to calm himself.
“I was afraid of leaving my house, I was paranoid,” he recalled. “I got a sword and started sleeping with it beside my bed.”
Husbands described recurring nightmares “of someone trying to stab me or shooting at me or chasing me down.”
And then came that June day when he spotted the crew that attacked him.
Husband’s testimony continues Thursday.
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