Accused says he intended to make a sandwich, not kill girlfriend

In a tension-filled courtroom, Haiden Suarez Noa repeatedly denied the Crown prosecutor’s contention that he grabbed a long-bladed kitchen knife with the intention of killing his girlfriend, who he repeatedly stabbed to death in their Stoney Creek apartment in 2013.

Suarez Noa, who immigrated from Cuba in 2009, took the witness stand in his own defence Thursday. The 41-year-old is accused of second-degree murder in the death of Tania Cowell, 36, on March 9, 2013.

Under questioning from his lawyer, Charn Gill, Suarez Noa testified he went into the kitchen that night, thinking of making himself a sandwich. He grabbed a knife from the knife block to make it, and opened the fridge door to see what was in there, he said.

Cowell said something while walking by him. He closed the fridge door and followed her out of the kitchen to see what she wanted, he testified. He admits he still had the knife in his hand.

It was at that point, in the tiny hallway into the bathroom, that “Tania turned around and it was not pretty. An argument started,” he said.

“She said, ‘I can’t do this no more. I want my life back. I’m moving out and I’m taking (the couple’s then five-month-old baby son) with me,’ ” he testified. “I said you can’t do that. She said she can do whatever the f--- she wanted. She was Canadian and I’m a f---ing immigrant ...”

He said Cowell also told him she would do everything in her power to keep him from seeing his son.

“I lost it. Something here,” he said pointing to his brain, “short-circuited.” Suarez Noa admitted to killing Cowell and pleaded guilty to manslaughter when his trial started last week.

He’s on trial, however, for second-degree murder. The Crown’s position is that he intended to kill Cowell, which would make it murder.

Crown prosecutor Janet Booy, in her cross-examination of Suarez Noa on Thursday, questioned his account of what happened. She suggested the argument where Cowell told him she was moving out happened earlier than he says — and that he went into the kitchen not to make a sandwich, but to grab a knife.

“This whole part of thinking of making a sandwich and having a knife in hand is all so you have a reason to explain why you had a knife,” she said.

Suarez Noa countered with the answer: “You cannot handle the truth. This (what I told you) is what happened.”

When Booy suggested he first stabbed Cowell in the back as she was running from him, he said, “Tania wasn’t running from me ... and I didn’t stab her in the back. She is telling me this (that she’s moving out) face to face.”

Booy said the fact Cowell’s body had no injuries to her arms — to show she raised them to defend herself — indicates she was stabbed in the back first.

Suarez Noa’s response however, was, “I’m not even going to comment on that inflammatory, ridiculous question.” At another point, he said, “I just cannot begin to explain how wrong you are.”

He said he can’t explain how the stab wound in Cowell’s back got there. “Perhaps she moved, perhaps she bent . ... The back had to be available at some point.”

Suarez Noa said he couldn’t remember stabbing Cowell, but did remember the blood gushing out. He said he didn’t find out until about a year later that Cowell had 11 stab wounds, three of them to major arteries.