Woman convicted for third time in stabbing death
Calgary woman Crystal Crowchild was convicted for a third time Monday for murder in the stabbing death of a city man she killed after they had sex for money.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Robert Hall rejected Crowchild’s claim she was acting in self-defence when she repeatedly stabbed Aref Nassereddine at the back door to his southwest Calgary home.
Crowchild, who was convicted twice before in connection with the March 17, 2010, stabbing, had claimed she believed Nassereddine was going to kill or rape her when he grabbed her while she tried to leave his residence after they had sex.
But Hall said that the fact Crowchild took the knife, which she grabbed from a dish rack by Nassereddine’s back door, and his keys, which she used to lock the door behind her, showed she didn’t fear for her life.
Crowchild was ordered to face a third trial in April 2017, when Alberta’s top court ruled jurors who convicted her for a second time weren’t properly instructed on the law.
During Crowchild’s hearing before a three-member Alberta Court of Appeal panel, Crown prosecutor Julie Morgan was asked about comments made by Justice Ged Hawco to jurors.
During their deliberations in February 2016, jurors asked for clarification on the issue of intent to commit murder.
In his answer, Hawco told jurors that to find intent they would have to rule Crowchild knew when she stabbed the victim that it was dangerous and it “could” cause death, rather than the test of likely to cause death.
The appeal judges asked Morgan if that was fatal to the case.
After briefly considering her position, Morgan returned to court to say the Crown agreed a new trial was necessary.
Crowchild was twice convicted by juries of second-degree murder in the killing on March 17, 2010.
Nassereddine, 64, was killed by Crowchild in his southwest Calgary
home after taking her there to have sex.
Crowchild, who was 25 at the time, had met Nassereddine that morning in the East Village and agreed to go to his home for sex for $60.
During her second trial, she told court she had never before engaged in prostitution but needed to feed her crack habit.
After they had sex in his bed — while his wife was at work and sixyear-old daughter in school — he asked her for oral sex as well, she testified.
But Crowchild, who was only given $40, refused and began to leave the residence.
As she got to the back door, Nassereddine, still naked from the waist down, grabbed her, and she grabbed a knife from the sink nearby and repeatedly stabbed him.