Murder accused testifies about pact to win the hand of the devil's daughter (update)

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following story includes descriptions and language that some may find disturbing

Johnathan Townsend told jurors Monday at his first-degree murder trial that he didn't intend to kill Corellie Bonhomme even though he had a knife in his hand when he got into bed with her on Aug. 8, 2013.

"I was just kind of reacting," the 21-year-old explained when he took the witness stand in his own defence, as the trial entered its second week at the Sault Ste. Marie courthouse. 

"Had you planned to stab her?" his lawyer Jennifer Tremblay-Hall asked.

"No," replied the young man, who was 18 at the time of Bonhomme's death, and has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Her body was discovered in the bathtub of his Lake Street ground-floor apartment about 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 8.

He insisted that he didn't hate the 42-year-old exotic dancer, as he repeatedly said in Skype chats, but had "kind of fallen in love with her."

Townsend, who was chatting with a young American he described as his girlfriend, testified that he said things about hating Bonhomme to calm the girl down, so she wouldn't think he was cheating on her.

His talk about poisoning Bonhomme was part of his plan to make the older woman "fall in love with me," he said.

When he was chatting about grinding up bones, he was talking about killing a girl and her body guard, who had stolen $10 from him, but he said he referred to Bonhomme because he didn't want to tip people off about his true thoughts.

His revenge plan was stolen from an episode of South Park, Townsend explained.

The "stripper," as he referred to Bonhomme in the chat logs, reminded him of a girl he had known in the past, who had told him she was the devil's daughter.

Explaining he had made a pact with the devil in exchange for his daughter's hand, he asked the girl to prove it and put 17 sleeping tablets in her coffee.

The idea was if she was really the devil's daughter he would intervene, Townsend told the court.

The girl "mostly" slept for three days, and "ultimately shuns me" when he told her he was going to kill her, although "at first I thought she was kind of falling in love with me."

A week before he met Bonhomme, whom he found sleeping near his apartment mail box, the girl sent him a message saying how much he hated him, so Townsend said he decided he needed to recreate what had happened to see if Bonhomme would fall in love with him.

He said he planned to give Bonhomme the same amount of pills.

On the night Bonhomme died, he said the pair got into a little bit of fight.

He had prepared a microwave meal for her and put the tablets in the potatoes, but she refused to eat it because she had brought some food from Tim Hortons with her.

"She told me some guys would drug her and rape her and that she didn't trust me."

Bonhomme said she was going to leave in the morning and went to bed while he spent some time on his computer.

He then grabbed the knife because "I was a feeling a little bit suicidal."

As he was thinking about killing himself, he said he remembered that she had told him she was leaving in the morning.

"I was worried. I didn't want her to go."

He told Tremblay-Hall that he got into bed to try to convince Bonhomme not to leave and took the knife with him. 

"I was thinking if she refuses to stay it would be the push (he needed) to kill myself."

Townsend said he nudged her awake and told she didn't have to leave, but she responded that "I don't want to live with a rapist."

He testified that he doesn't really know what happened or how the knife had ended up in Bonhomme's neck.

Townsend said when he turned the light on, he may have seen a little blood. "I felt she was going to kill me."

Bonhomme, who stumbled into the bathroom, was making a lot of noise, and he put his hand over her mouth to shut her up.

She said something about calling an ambulance, and "I think I lifted her up and into the bathtub."

He was about to wrap a towel around her neck to stop the bleeding, but she died before he could do that, he said.

"The thought kept popping into my head how I was going to get AIDS from the blood," he told his lawyer, adding he "was obsessing over it." 

During cross-examination, when assistant Crown attorney Crystal Tomusiak asked if he had used a lot of force, he replied "probably, I don't know for sure," indicating he thought it was a fast, fluid motion, but he didn't really know if he pulled the knife out of her neck.

He said he asked the woman to get into the tub because the blood was causing a mess in the apartment and he was worried that his landlord would be mad at him.

Pointing to comments he made in the chats, calling Bonhomme names and insulting her, after he killed her, Tomusiak suggested he wasn't upset that she was dead.

Townsend, who was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome in 2010, said he thought it meant he was stupid, and he preferred to be labeled a psychopath.

He said he wanted to think, talk and act like a psychopath, so he typed things like he was just "pissed off" and didn't care if Bonhomme was dead.

"I didn't want people to think I was stupid."

Psychopaths usually have things like blood and gore fantasies, he explained.

Townsend said he was in a "mental" hospital in 2011 where he had a realistic dream, which convinced him that his life story was a TV show that was controlled by the audience.

If they started disliking him the ratings would go down, the show would be cancelled and he would die, he told the prosecutor when she asked why he had told a police detective he hadn't acted in anger.

"I was worried if I told him it was an anger thing, the TV show would end and I would just die."

Staff Sgt. Tom Armstrong was correct that it was anger, Tomusiak suggested.

"Yes," Townsend replied, subsequently agreeing that he hadn't mentioned these beliefs in his interview with the city police officer.

Townsend will be back on the stand Tuesday for further cross-examination.