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In this artist's sketch, Nicholas Butcher, testifies in a Halifax courtroom on Thursday, April 19, 2018. Nicholas Butcher has taken the stand in his own defence at his second-degree murder trial in the death of Halifax yoga instructor Kristin Johnston.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/James Vincent Walsh
Nicholas Butcher told the court at his second-degree murder trial that he was acting in self-defence when he killed his girlfriend, popular Halifax yoga instructor Kristin Johnston, on March 26, 2016.
“When I woke up, someone was on top of me stabbing me in the throat,” Butcher told the 14-member jury in Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Friday.
The Halifax man told the court that it was dark and he couldn’t see who it was. He said he “flipped the person over onto the other side of the bed,” got ahold of the knife and stabbed the person “three or four times in the throat.”
“I reached over and I turned on the lamp and the person that was beneath me was Kristin and she was dead,” Butcher said on the stand through tears.
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“I thought to myself, I have to die too. I can’t live having killed someone.”
Butcher told the court he then took the knife that he used to stab Kristin and slit his wrists. When that didn’t work, Butcher said he went to the bathroom, grabbed a razor blade and slit his wrists with that.
He said he then laid on the bed with Johnston, waiting to die.
Butcher said after that suicide attempt didn’t work, he thought if he made a worse cut he would die sooner. He testified that it was then he grabbed a mitre saw and cut off his right hand.
Butcher said he briefly lost consciousness when the saw went through the bone.
“When I woke up, I was in more pain than I’d ever been in my entire life,” Butcher testified. “I could feel my hand, but it wasn’t there.”
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Butcher says he then woke up, then started crawling to his phone. Butcher says he was telling himself, “just die, just die.” #NicholasButcher#Halifax#nscourts
Butcher said he was able to call 911 with his left hand. Court has previously heard that Butcher called 911 and told the dispatcher he had killed his girlfriend and tried to kill himself by cutting off his hand.
WARNING: The call contains graphic content and may be disturbing to some.
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