Advisory: This story has graphic and disturbing details about a murder case.
An Oak Bay police sergeant choked back emotion Thursday as he described finding the bodies of two young girls in their father’s apartment on Christmas Day 2017.
Sgt. Michael Martin testified that he received a call from Const. Piotr Ulanowski, who had been sent to Andrew Berry’s Beach Drive apartment after the girls’ mother reported to police that Berry had not returned the children as required by a custody order.
There was silence on the line, then Ulanowski asked for help. Then Martin heard the words “anarchy and bloodshed,” he testified at Berry’s murder trial at the Vancouver Law Courts.
Berry is accused of murdering his six-year-old daughter, Chloe, and his four-year-old daughter, Aubrey. He has pleaded not guilty.
Martin raced to the apartment building, where Ulanowski was waiting outside for him.
The two officers ran through the lobby and down the corridor to apartment 103.
Earlier testimony indicated the officers arrived about 6 p.m.
“The plan was to get into that unit as quickly as possible and render assistance,” Martin testified. “This was one of the situations in my career where I felt every second mattered.”
When the door opened, Martin said, the first thing that hit him was the darkness and the clutter on the floor. He turned on his flashlight and drew his gun.
They turned left and almost immediately, Ulanowski told him there was a man in the bathtub who appeared to be dead. “Stay with him,” Martin ordered.
“Why did you ask Const. Ulanowski to stay with him?” asked prosecutor Patrick Weir.
“To render assistance,” Martin replied. “I didn’t know what we were dealing with at the time. … I didn’t know who the man was in the bathtub. There could have been a potential threat to police. The man may have made a dying declaration.”
Martin did not direct Ulanowski to place the man under arrest because he didn’t know if he was a victim or a perpetrator. His priority was to preserve life, he testified.
Martin walked briskly to the living room and shouted back to Ulanowski: “Where are the girls?”
He swept through the living room with his flashlight to see if anyone else needed help.
“Const. Ulanowski told me I passed two bedrooms on the way in. I turned around and went in the direction I had come from,” Martin testified, adding that he also checked the kitchen with his flashlight and found no one there.
Martin entered the first bedroom.
“There was no one else present in the bedroom except for a small child on the bed,” Martin said. He paused and took a sip of water. “The child was lying face down. … She didn’t appear to be breathing and I checked for a pulse.”
Martin used two fingers on his right hand to check for a pulse at the girl’s neck. He did not find a pulse. She was cold to the touch.
He radioed the dispatch centre to report his findings.
Martin went to the second bedroom and saw a smaller child on the bed.
“She, too, was cold to the touch,” Martin testified. “I checked for her pulse on her as well.”
“How did you feel?” Weir asked.
“I was distraught,” Martin replied.
He advised the dispatcher he would check for pulses again.
However, he reconsidered and stood in a doorway between the two bedrooms to prevent other first responders from contaminating the crime scene.
Then Const. Sandrine Perry arrived at the apartment. She was about to go on shift.
“She offered to check their pulses,” Martin said. “We decided it was prudent to get a second opinion on what I had determined. I was hoping I was wrong.”
Martin said he had misgivings initially about letting Perry check. “The misgivings I presented to her were based … ” Martin choked up and was unable to go on. He put his hand up, and sipped some water. “ … were based on the fact that sometimes you see things that you can’t unsee,” he said, his voice breaking. “I didn’t want to expose her to that.”
Perry went into the bedroom and confirmed the girls were dead.
Berry was removed from the bathtub and taken to hospital.
Martin stood outside the apartment door until 8:15 p.m., when he was relieved by another officer.
Just after 9 p.m., Martin debriefed with police from the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit.
“They were asking me what happened. The way I remember, it was a little off-putting because they were looking at me quite impassively. At one point, I had to gather my thoughts. I lost my breath for a second when I was explaining to them that I checked the girls’ necks. I raised my two fingers and saw blood on them. I had to gather my thoughts again,” he said.
The trial is expected to continue today with the defence cross-examining Martin.
