TORONTO — The man who shot and killed two people in a crowded food court testified on Tuesday that he was only in the downtown mall at his girlfriend's urging.
He didn't want to go that Saturday evening, Christopher Husbands said, because an attack that almost killed him several months earlier had left him paranoid and wary of crowds.
"I was still having nightmares. I was still having flashbacks," Husbands told the jury.
The prosecution maintains the mall gunfire that also injured five people and sparked panic was a planned and deliberate revenge shooting. Husbands, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, denies that.
He said he was only at the Eaton Centre because his girlfriend wanted to visit a sports store.
After she bought ice skates and he bought roller blades and a jacket, they went to the busy food court to meet her mother for something to eat.
"I was agitated. I was losing patience. I wanted to get out of there," Husbands said.
Husbands, 25, told Ontario Superior court that he believed a group of men who had attacked him in February 2012 and left him in a pool of blood meant to kill him.
He said he had no idea what prompted the attack but said he was convinced they would try to finish the job.
"They'd do whatever they have to do to shut me up. I was worried for my life."
Testifying in his own defence for a second day, Husbands said he had a gun with him when he went to the landmark mall in June 2012 because it made him feel safer. A friend, he said, had given him the weapon a day earlier to look after.
Among those who had taken part in the February attack was Nixon Nirmalendran, 22, one of two men Husbands would later kill in the food court.
Husbands and Nirmalendran had known each other for years and had been friends but the relationship deteriorated.
"At one point, Nixon was a very nice guy. He just went from getting bullied to not wanting to get bullied so bad that he became very aggressive," Husbands told the jury.
"He just needed to let everyone know 'I have a gun and I can shoot that gun'."
Husbands said he tried to distance himself after Nirmalendran admitted to killing a man in 2008 but was afraid to just cut him off completely.
Nor did he tell police that Nirmalendran had admitted the shooting.
"You don't talk," he said under questioning from his lawyer, Dirk Derstine.
Following the February 2012 stabbing, Husbands said he was constantly on edge, started drinking more heavily and using crack cocaine, and began looking to carry a gun for protection.
"I just wanted to be safe," he said.
Before the mall shooting, court heard, he had only fired a weapon a few times — at a gun range.
He also said he had reached out to Nirmalendran through intermediaries to try to sort matters out.
