Murder victim’s daughter was hugging her as she was stabbed, court hears

As double-murder suspect Hari Pal repeatedly stabbed his estranged wife, the woman’s young daughter clung to her mother, court heard Tuesday.

Shalni Gill testified she rushed to Pal’s basement suite when she heard screaming coming from her tenant’s unit. And Gill, who lived upstairs, said she watched as Pal forced his way into a bedroom and grabbed his wife, Sanjula Devi.

“He started pulling her out and he started stabbing Sanjula,” Gill told Crown prosecutor Joe Mercier. “The little girl was hugging her mother,” the witness said of Devi’s nine-year-old daughter, whose name is the subject of a publication ban.

“I tried to pull (the daughter) from there,” Gill said.

Pal, 55, is charged with seconddegree murder in connection with the May 4, 2014, stabbing death of Devi and the killing of Fahmida Velji-Visram, who had gone to the residence with the mother to retrieve some clothing. He is also charged with the attempted murder of Gill, who was stabbed in the shoulder.

Gill testified she managed to pull the daughter from the fray and get her behind a couch. She then grabbed Pal’s jacket, as the husband continued his attack on his estranged wife. “I held on to Hari Pal’s jacket and I tried to pull him, so Sanjula would have a little space to run,” she said. “He turned around and then he stabbed me on the shoulder. ... Sanjula was able to escape and run to the stairs, but he was still holding onto her.”

Devi collapsed by the door at top of the stairwell.

Gill didn’t know about Velji-Visram’s injuries until she later heard there was another victim outside.

Chief medical examiner Dr. Elizabeth Brooks-Lim performed autopsies on both women the following day. Brooks-Lim said Devi was stabbed eight times and had cut marks on her neck.

But she said all but one of the wounds would likely not have killed her.

“There is a stab wound in the centre of the chest,” she said. “The stab wound to the front of the chest was the fatal stab wound.”

She said that wound “passed through . . . the main major artery in the body, the aorta, and also caused injury to the right lung, causing massive blood loss.”

Brooks-Lim said Velji-Visram was stabbed twice, once in the chest and once in the back, but both wounds struck major organs — her heart and left lung — and would have been fatal.

She said both women would have died quickly, but noted VeljiVisram got to the hospital before succumbing to her wounds.

Court heard when Pal was arrested within two hours of the stabbings his mouth appeared glued shut with contact cement.

Paramedic Robert Gladney said he tried to ask Pal questions, but couldn’t get verbal answers. “His mouth and his airway … looked like it was glued shut with some yellow epoxy he ingested.”

Pal was rushed by ambulance to the hospital and treated there.