Mandel: An unexpected defence 

Sherry Martin (SUPPLIED PHOTO)

OSHAWA -  It was the shocking defence no one saw coming.
For two weeks, the jury has heard the Crown’s case against Ken Mullin, a 42-year-old carpenter on trial for the second-degree murder of Sherry Martin, his common-law wife of 17 turbulent years.
This wasn’t a whodunnit, the prosecutor had told them. Mullin has pleaded not guilty but the jury was told that he’d already admitted to police that he’d killed his partner after years of marital strife.
Or so went that Crown theory.
But now it was defence lawyer Marcy Segal’s turn to outline what she says really happened the night Martin was found in their home with a fatal stab wound to her heart and blood all over her client.
Until then, it may have appeared like an open and shut case and Segal acknowledged as much. Mullin surrendered to police shortly after they responded to the 911 call on Feb. 24, 2009. In his videotaped interview with Durham Police a few hours later, he said they’d been fighting — as they often did — and Martin had thrown an ashtray at him and accused him of sleeping around.
The next thing he remembered, he was cradling her in his arms and trying to revive her. Over and over he insisted he’d blacked out.
“I must have stabbed her or something,” he finally acknowledged on the police video. “I don’t remember what happened.”
With Mullin’s own compelling words, the Crown closed its case Tuesday afternoon. All eyes now turned expectantly to the defence side of the courtroom.
“We know she was stabbed,” Segal told the jury in her opening statement, “and I have no doubt that some of you may almost be convinced that Ken Mullin stabbed her.”
But not so fast, his lawyer cautioned them.
The jurors leaned in closer to hear what would come next from the aggressive, auburn-curled lawyer. Was she going to argue self-defence? An alcohol-fuelled accident? A black-out mystery?
It would be none of the above: “Ken Mullin is going to tell you that Sherry Martin stabbed herself.”
If this were a TV show, there would have been scripted gasps from the jury and the gallery alike. Instead, there was a hushed sense of incredulity: an alleged victim of domestic assault blamed for her own violent death?
“To say that someone would injure or kill themselves is not logical. But people are not always logical,” Segal argued. “Maybe she didn’t want to kill herself, just injure herself.”
The jury heard the couple got together shortly after Martin — who was 12 years his senior — had a son by Mullin’s older brother. They eventually moved into a heavily-mortgaged home Mullin bought using $25,000 he’d received in an injury payout. Their union, though, was rocky, especially in its later years.
“Ken loved her very much and so he never wanted to leave her. And if he had his druthers, he would still be with her,” Segal said. “They fought about what most relationships fought about: money, infidelity, stupid crap.”
While Mullin was convicted in 2002 of threatening death and given a conditional discharge, his lawyer insisted he’d never tried to kill her.
Instead, he’d come home late that day after drinking all afternoon and as usual, they began to argue. Tired of the fighting, she said, he walked past her as he headed to the shower. “He heard a bang on the floor. He immediately turned around and saw Sherry falling,” the lawyer told the jury. “He saw the knife. He pulled it out and cradled her as she died in his arms.”
In a panic, she said, Mullin dropped the knife in the kitchen and went down to the basement where he tried to hang himself. Changing his mind, he untied the makeshift noose and went upstairs to find the police had arrived. Segal said Mullin admitted nothing and refused to say what really happened.
But now he will.
“He will tell you that he never got the knife and that he never killed her,” she said.
And “without further ado,” she dramatically called Mullin to the stand.
“Did you kill Sherry Martin?” Segal asked.
“No, ma’am,” he replied. “She killed herself.”
The trial continues.
Read Mandel Wednesday through Friday.