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Warning: this story incorporates disturbing particulars, together with references to suicide, home abuse and violence towards youngsters.
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Within the months earlier than he killed seven-year-old Bella Rose Desrosiers, David Moss grew more and more paranoid a couple of cellphone tower close to his household’s southeast Edmonton dwelling.
“He was fairly set on 5G,” Tracy Couture-Starosta advised Moss’s homicide trial Wednesday, detailing the varied conspiracy theories to which her former husband subscribed.
“He was very satisfied that it was affecting him. He would really feel vibrations ringing in his ears. He would get up within the night time to take walks to get away from it.”
Over the approaching months, Moss’s delusions worsened. In line with Couture-Starosta, Moss obsessed over condensation trails, vaccinations, aliens and authorities involvement within the COVID-19 pandemic. He started recording violent rap songs and posting them to Fb, introduced he was on a “religious awakening,” and now not ate meat as a result of “it was going to place concern into him.”
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Simply earlier than the killing, Moss phoned Couture-Starosta and, in a weird calm, introduced he was going to kill her and himself. In response, Couture-Starosta referred to as the Edmonton police psychological well being workforce.
“I referred to as and I begged them to take him someplace.”
Hours later, Moss killed Bella after the woman’s mom introduced him to her dwelling on their option to the hospital.
‘He was watching issues on YouTube’
Moss’s second-degree murder trial began Monday with Moss pleading not responsible. He claims he’s not criminally accountable for his actions as a consequence of a psychological dysfunction.
The 36-year-old sat within the prisoner field Wednesday carrying orange coveralls, eyes downcast, often holding his head in his palms.
Couture-Starosta, who took the stand for the defence Wednesday, has 4 youngsters with Moss. They started relationship in 2004 and married 4 years later. In 2009, they opened a tattoo store with funds from Moss’s mother and father. Moss inked tattoos, whereas Couture-Starosta did piercings.
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She mentioned she thought the store could be a dream come true for her husband, however that Moss “was by no means happy.” On the witness stand, Couture-Starosta described Moss as self-centred, and mentioned the connection was “up and down, good and dangerous, every thing in between.” On one event in 2009, Moss punched her within the face.
Moss and Melissa Desrosiers, Bella’s mom, grew up in neighbouring small cities. After Moss began tattooing, Desrosiers sought him out for a design. Later, after Desrosiers’s husband died by suicide, Moss gave her a free memorial tattoo. The 2 have been each “religious,” Couture-Starosta mentioned, and talked collectively concerning the concept of “awakenings.”
Across the time of his home violence arrest, Moss started to indicate an curiosity in conspiracy theories, together with anti-government conspiracies and aliens. He and Couture-Starosta not often mentioned his concepts, which she mentioned grew to become extra excessive with the expansion of social media. Ultimately, the 2 started sleeping in separate rooms, and Moss grew to become extra reclusive.
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In line with Couture-Starosta, Moss suffered a mind harm as a youth and infrequently had seizures. He not often took treatment, and opposed vaccinating their youngsters. In the future in 2019, Moss referred to as Couture-Starosta and mentioned he felt like he was going to kill her and the youngsters. She took him to hospital, the place he was assessed by a physician and given an undisclosed prescription.
That very same yr, Moss “determined he was going to be a rap star” and stop working on the tattoo store, Couture-Starosta mentioned. His marijuana consumption elevated. “He needed freedom. He needed his cake, however to eat it, too.”
On March 14, 2020, Couture-Starosta and Moss closed the tattoo store with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Round that point, Moss mentioned he was going to go on a “journey” and introduced he was experiencing a “Kundalini awakening” — a religious expertise rooted in Hinduism.
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“He advised me he was watching issues on YouTube, and this is similar sort of awakening he was having,” Couture-Starosta mentioned. “When he was within the awakening he felt peace and love and he’d inform me he didn’t must eat or drink or sleep.”
On the day of the threatening telephone name, shortly earlier than Bella was killed, Couture-Starosta coordinated with Desrosiers about taking Moss to hospital.
In line with an agreed statement of facts entered Monday, Moss attacked Bella with a pair of scissors as she lay within the prime bunk of her mattress, after her mom learn a bedtime story to her and her youthful sister.
Moss’s trial is scheduled to final three weeks and is being heard by Courtroom of Queen’s Bench Justice Steven Mandziuk.
