'She just cried, cried and cried': Father's statement allowed in infant murder case

"Waste of a life, f--kin' five seconds."

According to the court documents, James Travis Park said the words after more than 24 hours in police custody.

Twenty-four hours without a drink.

Officers had observed Park as jittery and shaky. He was suspected of killing his infant daughter nearly a year earlier.

And now, as he stood smoking a cigarette in the Burnaby RCMP police detachment garage, Park was talking. An officer asked him what he meant. 

"What a waste of a life, for a decision I made so quickly."

"You just snapped?" the officer asked. "Is that what you mean by it happened so quickly?"

"Yeah."

Involuntary statements?

The transcript of the interview was released Tuesday as part of a B.C. Supreme Court ruling allowing the conversation to be used as evidence in Park's four-week, second-degree murder trial, which ended last Thursday.

A judge is now considering Park's fate, with a decision expected in September.

He pleaded not guilty. 

Prior to the posting of the documents on the Supreme Court's website, the case received virtually no public attention. In fact, neither the girl's death nor Park's subsequent arrest or trial has been previously reported.

Justice Jeanne Watchuk was asked to rule on an application to exclude the statements on the grounds that they were made involuntarily.

Park also claimed the police breached his constitutional rights by failing to obtain medical assistance at a time when it was obvious he was in medical distress.

'Barely enough to remember'

The seven-week old girl died on March 1, 2015.

RCMP arrested Park for the crime on October 28, 2016 — a Friday afternoon. The issues Watchuk was asked to consider occurred during the 29 hours that followed.

According to the ruling, Park told officers he was a smoker, an alcoholic and had a prescription to counter anxiety.

IHIT members filled his prescription and took him for several cigarette breaks in between interviews.

As the time passed, Park hallucinated about seeing black flies in his cell. He also allegedly claimed the floor was sticky and a ceiling slab was threatening to fall.

Officers presented Park with evidence that included photographs of his daughter prior to the girl's death. They also showed him a composite image of CT scans of her skull.

Now, as they talked in the garage, an officer asked Park if the child had been crying. He said yes.

"How much had you been drinking?" the officer asked.

"A lot, like barely enough to remember it."

According to the transcript, Park said he'd taken the girl from her swing. The officer asked what happened.

"She just cried, cried and cried and cried and cried," Park responded.

One of the officers later asked Park if he caused the infant's head injury.

"I don't know," Park said.

"Explain that to me, what do you mean?"

"I was like —"

"You just kinda go off the handle?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, Did you hit her against something?"

"I don't know."

'Alert, articulate, coherent and aware'

In arguing that Park's statements were involuntary, the defence claimed his anxiety and alcohol withdrawal, along with the trauma of the evidence presentation combined "to create an atmosphere of oppression."

In the hours after he spoke with officers, he reported further hallucinations and was observed pacing, standing and sitting.

He told a guard words to the effect of: "You've got to understand I really loved her."

Park was ultimately taken to hospital for medical observation after trying to choke himself and using a hardcover book to swipe at his neck.

But while he may have been suicidal by that time, the judge concluded Park's alcohol withdrawal was only mild-to-moderate when he gave the statements.

"Park understood what was being said to him by police; the legal advice he was provided; the consequences of speaking to the police; the circumstances of his arrest; and that he had been charged with the murder of his daughter," Watchuk wrote.

"He was alert, articulate, coherent, and aware. His cognitive abilities were not affected by anxiety or alcohol withdrawal."

'No overall mistreatment'

The judge also rejected the defence's application to exclude the statement as a remedy for an alleged breach of Park's right to be kept safe while in police custody.

She found that the statement wasn't obtained in a way that infringed his rights, and that there was no connection between an alleged failure of police to look after him and the statements he gave.

"There was no indication during the Second Statement that Mr. Park's condition would suddenly deteriorate to that extent, and on the medical evidence, no way to predict that it would," the judge wrote.

"There was no overall mistreatment or inaction in the face of symptoms that would connect the transaction of the statement to the transaction of Mr. Park's sudden deterioration and subsequent events, including the attempted self-harm."