Accused can’t explain blood stains

DNA a match with stabbing victim

It was something Richard Keith Blake didn’t have an explanation for.

A spot of blood, in the middle of the red Roots T-shirt he was wearing when he was arrested, that belonged to a man who had been stabbed about 20 times during a frenzied middle-of-the-night attack in his home by an intruder armed with a pair of knives.

Blake told a jury he had never been to the man’s house, much less stabbed him or slit the throat of his wife after binding her to a chair with duct tape.

Blake admitted he touched one of the knives and a pair of bloody gloves used during the attack after unwittingly being inserted into the crime by a mysterious stranger with “movie star white teeth” who hugged him and then offered him a free SUV at five in the morning, which he excitedly but naively accepted.

The knife and gloves were on the seat under a black Toronto Blue Jays toque matching the description of the one the attacker wore, that Blake said he immediately tried on after climbing into his new ride.

But he couldn’t remember his fingers ever becoming wet or sticky from the blood that stained the blades, and definitely didn’t know how the blood of a victim who picked him out of a photo lineup ended up staining his T-shirt.

“What’s your explanation for how that blood stain got there?” asked prosecutor Meaghan Cunningham.

“I don’t really have one,” replied Blake.

Blake testified that it was all a big mistake that he ended up on trial charged with attempted murder in the June 26, 2010, attack on François Renaud and Amalle Thomas in their Rideout Crescent home.

He hadn’t done anything wrong, Blake said.

He took the free SUV from the stranger because he wanted a car. He then planned a spur-of-the-moment, twoday trip to visit his mother in Campbellford, quickly folding and packing nine T-shirts, a long-sleeved shirt, two extra pairs of jeans, several pairs of shorts and a football in a gym bag while the mystery stranger waited downstairs for a ride.

When he came down, the stranger was gone, but the keys were on the hood. Blake decided to set out for home anyway. Blake said it didn’t occur to him police were trying to stop him when they attempted to box him in with their emergency lights flashing on Hwy. 417.

Blake confessed he was scared after hitting one of the cruisers, so he drove across the grassy median, went the other direction on the highway and abandoned the car on an off-ramp near Scotiabank Place.

“You tried to get away because you believed at that point you had murdered Amalle Thomas and you believed you might spend the rest of your life in jail,” Cunningham suggested.

Blake disagreed. Blake said he ran because that’s what his brain told him to do, but decided to stop when he realized he had no reason to run.

But the flies were bugging him, he said, so he climbed a tree to get away from the airborne insects.

“I’m going to suggest to you, you weren’t waiting for the police, you were hiding from the police,” said Cunningham.

Blake couldn’t explain, though, how a pair of knives matching the bloody butcher knife ended up on top of his microwave. Duct tape and Zip Ties also found in his home were there for work, he explained.

“Are you suggesting the police may have planted those knives there?” asked Ontario Superior Court Justice Albert Roy.

“I’m saying I’ve never seen those knives before,” replied Blake.

The trial continues Wednesday.