"If I wanted to kill her or hurt her, why would I do it at the mall?"
Everton Downey asked that question more than once during cross-examination at his murder trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver this week.
Downey, 34, is on trial for second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his late girlfriend, 25-year-old Melissa Blimkie at Burnaby's Metrotown mall on Dec. 19, 2021.
He has admitted to stabbing Blimkie but pleaded not guilty.
The main issue in the trial is Downey's mental state at the time of the killing and whether he was suffering from a mental disorder rendering him not criminally responsible.
While being questioned by his own lawyer, Downey said he'd started to believe he was being monitored, followed and drugged in the weeks leading up to the stabbing.
Three or four days before the killing, he said he had grabbed and slapped Blimkie after he said he had seen her put a white powder in his drink.
And, on the morning of Dec. 19, 2021, when the couple were about to enter Metrotown mall from a second storey parkade, he said Blimkie had thrown a white powder in his face that made him black out.
Under cross-examination, Downey agreed he had stabbed Blimkie but said he could not remember anything except losing control of his actions because the powder had intoxicated him immediately.
Downey was then shown security video in court that showed him opening the door for Blimkie before they went inside the mall.
"Can you explain how it is, when you just told the court you lost control before going into that room, you somehow managed to open the door and let your girlfriend walk through it before you went through it?" Crown prosecutor Brendan McCabe asked.
He began an explanation but then paused and said he loved Blimkie and, if he wanted to hurt her or kill her, it wouldn't have made sense for him to do it at the mall, in public.
"I lived with her," he said.
He said the incident happened three years ago, and he couldn't remember "certain little details."
McCabe suggested the security video went on to show Blimkie and Downey enter the stairwell where Blimkie was found a short time later with 15 stab wounds from a knife Downey had bought from Canadian Tire for his protection.
The security video showed the larger of the two figures entering and exiting the stairwell several times.
But Downey said he couldn't tell from the video who the two people were.
"You can barely see anything," he said.
Downey told the court he knows he stabbed Blimkie but said he was blacked out and not able to control his actions and could not remember any details about when he pulled the folding knife out of his pocket, extended the blade and started stabbing her.
He said he did remember hearing a voice in his head saying, "She's trying to kill you; she's trying to get you killed; she's trying to set you up."
The Crown did not lay out its theory of the case at the beginning of the trial, but a flurry of questions from McCabe during Downey's cross-examination suggested one.
McCabe suggested Downey had been benefitting financially from Blimkie's sex work and that she had been selling drugs for him, but that she wanted out of the sex trade – at one point sending a message saying "I can't do this anymore."
McCabe suggested Downey knew the relationship was coming to an end and was angry with her on the day of the stabbing.
But Downey denied McCabe's suggestions.
He said he had not been angry with Blimkie that morning and that he had never forced her to do anything.
Downey's cross-examination wrapped up Friday afternoon.
The trial, which has been proceeding in segments, is scheduled to continue in January with two final witnesses, both forensic psychiatrists who assessed Downey.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on X/Twitter @CorNaylor
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