Advisory: This story has details about a murder case
DNA samples taken from blood on a knife involved in the deaths of Chloe and Aubrey Berry matches DNA taken from Andrew Berry, the girls’ father, a murder trial heard Monday.
Christy Sanderson, a forensic specialist with the RCMP, said she analyzed DNA samples found at Andrew Berry’s Oak Bay apartment, where the girls’ bodies were found. She testified that four amples from the knife, on either side of the handle and the blade, matched a sample taken from Andrew Berry.
Two of the samples came from a single source matching Berry, while the other two were a mixture of a sample that matched Berry, and a sample that did not contain enough genetic information to make a comparison.
Three more samples taken from Berry’s pants were also a match.
The match means the DNA on the knife either came from Berry, or an unrelated person with the exact same DNA profile, Sanderson said. She testified that the probability of the DNA having come from someone other than Barry is one in 96 quintillion, or one in 96,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Berry is accused of killing six-year-old Chloe and four-year-old Aubrey on Christmas Day in 2017. Police officers found the two girls dead on their beds in their father’s Oak Bay apartment, after Berry failed to drop them off at their mother’s home as set out in their custody agreement. Berry, naked and injured, was found in a bathtub filled with water, the court has heard.
He has pleaded not guilty.
