Crown lawyer calls accused killer a drug addict
Crown in first-degree murder case questions claims that accused’s wife had been feeding him drugs
On Tuesday, the Crown in Danny Paul Eyaituk’s first-degree murder trial implied the accused is a lying drug addict. (File photo)
On the seventh day of a first-degree murder trial in Sanikiluaq, the Crown questioned inconsistencies in the accused’s prior testimony.
Danny Paul Eyaituk testified Tuesday that he didn’t remember shooting his wife more than two years ago. He was hallucinating, suffering from a mental health crisis and he blacked out.
He’s on trial for first-degree murder in the death of his wife, 36-year-old Annie Tracy Oqaituq on April 19, 2024.
On Monday, Eyaituk testified he wanted to quit doing drugs but his wife would not let him.
Eyaituk repeated the same claim Tuesday as he continued to testify in his defence.
“I wanted to quit, but she influenced me to keep taking cocaine. I told her I didn’t want take cocaine anymore, and I didn’t understand why she used to encourage me to take cocaine,” he said, adding that she told him if he stopped taking cocaine there would be no income.
The couple had been selling cocaine and cannabis out of their home, witnesses testified earlier in the trial.
“Do you agree that, in 2024, you were given a lot of information about how to get help to stop taking drugs by mental health nurses?” Crown lawyer Emma Baasch asked during her cross-examination Tuesday.
Baasch listed several dates Eyaituk had gone to the mental health clinic, including in August 2023, January 2024, February 2024 and March 2024,
She implied Oqaituq had forced him to visit the clinic and on occasion had been there with him.
Eyaituk disagreed when Baasch said mental health nurses were trying to provide him with resources to quit drugs.
On March 19, 2024, one month before his wife was shot, Eyaituk visited a mental health nurse.
“[A nurse] wrote in the record that she gave you information about available supports to assist with harm reduction and strategies and you said that you want to try on your own and would follow up with her if you changed your mind and wanted help,” Baasch said.
Eyaituk said he did not recall the conversation.
When the couple was selling drugs, Oqaituq would give him more than eight small baggies, Eyaituk said. Each baggie would be sold for $100, and he was consuming the cocaine he sold, he said.
“Do you agree that your use of drugs would have cost $800 or $1,000 a day?” Baasch asked.
“Yes. I would take them only when she offered them. And she offered them every day,” he said.
Baasch suggested the couple was selling drugs not to make money, but to maintain Eyaituk’s addiction.
“I told her, we need to stop taking people’s money, because that money would have been feeding children in the neighbourhood. But she would not accept that,” Eyaituk said.
“I’m going to suggest to you that that never happened. That you were the one who was addicted to drugs and needed to keep selling drugs to maintain your addiction,” Baasch said.
Eyaituk finished testifying Tuesday, after two days on the stand as the defence’s first witness.
The next court date is set June 24 in Sanikiluaq.
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