Mother, son stabbed in 'emotional frenzy' by husband, Victoria inquest hears

A mother and her six-year-old son were stabbed and slashed almost 80 times in an emotional frenzy before the boy's father plunged the knife into his own chest repeatedly, a pathologist said in grisly testimony at a coroner's inquest Friday.

Dr. Kerry Pringle's clinical testimony in a Victoria courtroom painted a ghastly picture of the horrific last minutes of life for Sunny Park, her son Christian and her parents, Kum Lea Chun and Moon Kyu Park, before Park's husband then turned the knife on himself.

Sunny Park received 49 stab and slash wounds, most of them to the chest and had other injuries that suggested she tried to defend herself.

Her son was also stabbed repeatedly in the chest, Pringle said.

"When you see a pattern like that … it tends to suggest an emotional frenzy," Pringle testified.

He said Park's wounds were made with "a sewing machine-type motion. Stabbing, stabbing, stabbing."

Park's parents were also stabbed repeatedly in the chest and back.

Police arrived at the family's house in the Victoria suburb of Oak Bay after someone inside placed a screaming, hysterical call to 911 early on Sept. 4, 2007.

Officers arrived to find a gruesome bloodbath.

Park and her son were found lying face up, next to each other on a bed, the inquest heard.

Peter Lee, Park's husband and Christian's father, was found lying on top of them.

He had a knife beside him, testified Sgt. Mike Brown, the officer in charge of the Victoria police's emergency response team.

"Their injuries were catastrophic and horrific. I've never seen anything like it in my life," Brown said. "Both had been massacred with an edge weapon."

Pringle said Lee had stabbed himself in the chest 10 times in a "frenzied pattern."

The wounds were parallel, an indication of suicide, said Pringle.

"It hurts. You can't do it slowly. It's often multiple, quick stabs," he said.

No evidence of drugs, alcohol

A toxicology report found no evidence of drugs or alcohol in Lee's system.

The inquest heard earlier this week that five weeks before her death, Sunny Park told police she was afraid her husband would kill her and her family.

She said in a videotaped interview that her husband was angry and violent and had a fascination with knives.

Her interview was taped the same day as she and Lee were in a car accident that broke her arm and injured her face.

Park told police Lee had crashed the vehicle into a hydro pole on purpose because he was angry at her plans to divorce him. Lee was charged in the car crash but was not held in custody.

The Crown did not oppose his release.

Lee was under a court order to stay away from his family after the accident.

Brown said when the emergency response team arrived at the house, they were aware that Lee had a military background, likely had weapons and maybe even explosives training.

At one point the team shot a hole into the side of the home and inserted a camera through the hole to look inside the barricaded room, Brown said.

The camera picked up what appeared to be one body and later a second body.

But the ERT didn't enter the house until about four hours after the 911 call was received.

Brown said the entry was a risky manoeuvre because the team did not know if Lee was alive or dead and the camera was showing an object that looked like a rifle barrel.

The inquest has also heard officers smelled gas and were concerned Lee intended to blow up the house.