The man accused of the 2020 sword attacks in Quebec City testified in his murder trial on Wednesday, telling jurors that when he turned 18, he became obsessed with completing a mission that required him to him to kill people and then die.
“The mission was crucial,” Carl Giroud told jurors. “It simply came to our notice then. It was not a wish … it was an obligation. “
The 26-year-old admitted that he carried out the attacks on Halloween night, in which two people were killed and five were injured, but said he could not be held criminally responsible for his actions because he was mentally unstable at the time.
Dressed in a white shirt and shackles at the ankles and wrists, Giroud took up position in the morning, shortly after his mother’s testimony.
During cross-examination, the defendant admitted that he realized that his plan was illegal in 2015, when he confided in his former social worker that he wanted to modify it because he was afraid of going to prison.
Giroare also confirmed that he understood that attacking someone with a sword could hurt him, in relation to something he said to another former adviser in 2014.
But for him at the time, “the pain he causes people is not pain, it’s necessary,” he said.
He said he felt controlled by the mission he had.
To do evil was to do good, that was for me.
Monique Dalfon, Carl Giroud’s mother, cried several times as she testified and then heard her son tell his story in court on Wednesday. (Illustration by Hbé)
Giroud’s mother cried as her son described the attacks.
Jurors heard him testify that he felt frightened and hesitant in the moments before the attacks, but he continued to do so because he felt compelled.
He said he had to force himself to get angry in order to act, but the anger only really came after he failed to kill his first victim, Remy Belange.
“Why did I fail what I had to do? [in doing]”He said he was thinking at the time. He said it led him to kill Francois Duchamp, his second victim.
Giroud said he was beginning to understand what he had done and regretted his actions after killing Susan Clermont and then attacking a group of young men.
While hiding from the police, he told the jury that he had repeatedly wondered why he had done so.
– What was the logic to do this? he remembers thinking, “but it was too late.”
Carl Giroud parked his car in front of the iconic Chateau Frontenac in Quebec before attacking seven people. His path is shown on the map above. (Christy Rich / CBC)
Giroud said that his life before the attacks was one in which he kept his distance from others, rarely staying in the same job for long without meeting.
“I had to kill people on my mission and the idea [made it] I’m uncomfortable getting close to people. “
He felt torn between two personalities – “two Carls in his head” – one real and one on a mission.
His idea of an alternate reality began in high school when he was about 15 and began playing video games involving violence, battles, swords and medieval conditions, he said.
Message about “alter ego”
This photo of Carl Giroud’s bedroom, taken by Quebec police on November 1, 2020, shows the so-called “symbol of chaos” that Giroud painted on his mirror on the day of the attacks and the sword he set in your mattress. (Surété du Quebec)
The young man, who is from Sainte-Thérèse, Que., Near Montreal, said he doesn’t like the modern world, that there are too many cars, people don’t say hello and everyone is forced to get dressed. comply.
He wanted to create chaos to change the world and inspire what he called his “alter ego” – people with similar goals on such “secret missions” – to follow his example.
That’s why he chose Halloween 2020, a full moon night and Old Quebec, he said. He thought the setting was right to send a message.
Giroud said he originally had several locations in mind, but is interested in Quebec City’s historic district because it reminds him of his video games with its statues and older buildings.
Behavioral problems from childhood
The defense showed the jury a brutal drawing that Carl Giroud made for his father’s new partner when he was about 11. (Emily Warren / CBC News)
The first witness to the defense was Giroud’s mother, Monique Dalphon, who told the court that her son had behavioral and mental problems since childhood.
He has started behaving inappropriately in kindergarten, she said when he got into trouble for chasing older girls to school and trying to kiss them.
He was antisocial and had no friends or hobbies in his youth, she said, and instead preferred to play video games such as Call of Duty: Warzone.
She said her son began developing an interest in swords and samurai costumes in 2014, when he turned 18 and managed to get a credit card to buy them.
“He said it was a collection,” said the mother. She testified that he was constantly building swords.
“I was certainly worried, but that’s his only interest,” she said, explaining that she hadn’t tried to stop him because he looked happy.
By 2016, she was even more concerned.
“I noticed something very disturbing: Carl was talking alone in the shower and he would laugh alone,” she said. But when she asked him who she was talking to, he was silent.
Dalfond, who has not worked since the attacks, said her son moved out in 2019.
Carl Giroud’s lawyer, Pierre Gagnon, will hire an expert to testify about his client’s mental abilities. (Radio Canada)
Over the next few days, Giroud’s lawyer, Pierre Gagnon, will also bring a psychiatrist and security guard into custody, where his client has been detained, to convince the jury that Giroud cannot be held criminally responsible for the attacks.
The defense is based on Article 16 of the Canadian Penal Code, which states that a person may be found irresponsible for a crime committed by him if he has had a mental disorder that prevents him from understanding the nature of his actions or from understanding that this what he did was wrong.
Crown Prosecutor Francois Godin is expected to bring in a neuropsychologist and psychiatrist in response to the defense’s evidence to prove that Giroud was sane and understood what he was doing.
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