Tyler Hikoalok claimed to have no memory of the “vicious” sexual assault and brutal beating death of church librarian Elisabeth Salm on May 24, 2018, as the accused killer moved from the prisoner’s box to the witness stand Tuesday to testify in his own defence.
“I blacked out. I can’t remember the rest of the day,” Hikoalok said under questioning from his lawyer Michael Smith as his first-degree murder trial resumed following a lengthy delay.
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Hikoalok had relayed a similar account to the police officers who arrested him on May 27, three days after the attack, when he was told he was being charged with murder and sexual assault.
“What the f— is wrong with me,” he told the arresting officer, according to previous testimony, and claimed he had been “blackout drunk” a few days earlier.
“I didn’t know I killed anybody,” he told the officer.
Hikoalok was confronted with those statements during Tuesday’s cross-examination from Assistant Crown attorney Brian Holowka.
“You knew there had been a horrible incident at the Christian Science reading room and that you had been involved in it,” Holowka said, which Hikoalok softly denied.
“You knew exactly the incident you were being arrested for,” Holowka said, and accused Hikoalok of trying to “evade” explanations to police.
Hikoalok again said “No,” as he often spoke in a hushed tone, appeared downcast at times and frequently asked counsel to repeat questions, often offering one-word answers in reply.
He told court he was born in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, and raised in foster homes before moving to Ontario when he was nine, where he lived at several group homes until moving to Ottawa a few years later.
“Tyler’s life leading up to this incident was not an easy one, and part of that came through in evidence you’ve already heard,” defence lawyer Brook Laforest told the jury in his opening address. “By the age of 18 he had already gone through some trauma that would otherwise last multiple lifetimes.”
Hikoalok said he had no relationship with his biological parents, had never met his father and began drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana at a young age during home visits to Nunavut.
“It was hard growing up, being bullied a lot,” Hikoalok said.
Hikoalok had been attending the Debbie Campbell Learning Academy, a downtown Ottawa alternative school, for about three years and was living at various shelters and at the Shepherds of Good Hope in the months leading up to the attack.
According to his testimony, Hikoalok woke up at a friend’s place on the morning of May 24 and drank the rest of a 26-ounce bottle of vodka he found in his backpack. He left and walked down Rideau Street, where he met up with a group of friends, then met another friend on the street who had a full bottle of rum.
Hikoalok said the friend emptied some rum into a plastic water bottle, which he took with him as he looked for a place to drink.
“I chugged the rest and then threw the bottle out,” Hikoalok said after he found a spot “near a hotel on Rideau Street.”
He claimed to have no memory of anything else that happened that day.
The next thing he remembered, he told his lawyer, was “waking up behind the bus station in Vanier.”
Hikoalok was shown surveillance video and agreed the figure “looks like me” as he is seen approaching the Christian Science library at 9:14 a.m. that day, then leaving through a separate exit more than an hour later.
“You’re not staggering… you’re not falling down,” Holowka said as he confronted Hikoalok with the video and said he showed no signs of intoxication.
“You don’t look like anyone who’s under the influence of alcohol or drugs,” the prosecutor said.
Hikoalok likewise showed no signs of intoxication when he showed up at his former school around 11 a.m. that day, where school staff testified previously that they noticed “nothing out of the ordinary” with Hikoalok’s demeanour.
Hikoalok claimed in his testimony to have no memory of visiting the school that day, no memory of speaking with a teacher, preparing calzones in the cafeteria or joking with fellow students. He testified he has no memory of what happened inside the reading room where Salm was killed.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I have no memory… I didn’t know I killed anyone.”
The trial had already heard three weeks of evidence and testimony called by the Crown when it was adjourned in late September. The two-month delay was partially explained by Laforest in the defence opening address to the jury.
Hikoalok was examined during the adjournment by Dr. Julian Gojer, a forensic psychiatrist at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, who completed a psychiatric assessment of Hikoalok over the past several weeks, Laforest told the jury.
The psychiatrist, who will also be called by the defence to testify this week, interviewed Hikoalok on several occasions and ordered brain scans to assist in forming his opinion.
Gojer, the defence explained, is expected to testify that the scans displayed signs of a neurological dysfunction, likely fetal alcohol syndrome.
The psychiatrist will explain the impact of the dysfunction on a person’s decision-making and other cognitive skills, Laforest said, and he will also explain the “susceptibility to blackouts for people with fetal alcohol syndrome.”
Hikoalok is scheduled to continue his testimony Wednesday.
ahelmer@postmedia.com