A heartbroken mother was on the stand in a Barrie courtroom Friday, describing the last phone call she shared with her son and the terrible premonition she says she experienced in the days before he was stabbed to death by Rick Patrick.
Janice King, mother of Christopher Forrester, was testifying in Patrick’s second-degree murder trial in Superior Court before Justice Clyde Smith.
Forrester was stabbed by Patrick, who is claiming he acted in self-defence, nine days before Christmas in 2021.
Less than a month before her son died, King had been dealing with a knee injury that prevented her from making trips to see her son from her home in eastern Ontario.
On the stand today, she described having “a terrible nightmare" after more than a year of trying to help her son deal with an escalating dispute with Patrick, who was attempting to evict Forrester from the trailer he owned.
“It was so real,” King testified about the nightmare, adding she had urged her son to stay away from Patrick as a result. “He said, ‘nothing's going to happen to me. I’m fine, I’m fine.'"
On the day Forrester was stabbed, King said they were organizing a family Christmas get-together with him and her two other sons.
King told the court that she spoken to her son twice that day — the first call was a group chat with him and one of his brothers. The second call between King and Forrester took place just before 10 p.m.
Excited about their first family Christmas together in two years (the pandemic prevented one the year previous), Forrester was in an especially buoyant mood.
“Good night, I love you,” she testified, when Crown attorney Dennis Chronopoulos asked her to describe what her son had said on the call.
“Anything out of the ordinary?” Chronopoulos asked.
“No, he was just really, really happy,” King told the court.
Less than a half hour later and a short distance away, Forrester was dying on Patrick’s driveway. He later succumbed to a single stab wound that pierced his heart at hospital in Midland.
Eight other members of Forrester’s family were in the public gallery on Friday. King was, for the most part, composed but needed to take a break not long after her testimony began when she spoke about her son’s relationship with his dog.
“It was the love of his life,” King testified of Macey, a Jack Russell terrier. “He lived for that dog.”
Before King took the stand, Ontario Provincial Police officer Janet Harris finished describing evidence that was collected at the scene, as well as inside both Patrick's and Forrester’s residences.
Included in Harris’s testimony were images of a small-scale cannabis grow-operation in Patrick’s home that police discovered in the days after Forrester was killed.
King, very early on in her testimony, spoke about how cannabis was one of the reasons the accused and Forrester struck up a friendship.
“(The friendship) progressed,” testified King. “Rick liked the way Chris grew pot.”
The trial began on Tuesday. However, it soon encountered delays due to technological issues, but mostly due to the health of two jurors. Court was recessed all day Thursday without hearing evidence as a result. One of those jurors was able to continue on Friday, but another was excused earlier this week and the panel now sits with 11 members, one short of the standard.
The trial continues.
