Man accused of stabbing Niagara winemaker says he ‘blacked out’

Bradley House had been talking to the police officer for about half an hour before he fully realized why he was under arrest.

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The Hamilton man had been arrested on Feb. 3, 2022, and charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Niagara winemaker Paul Pender, who was stabbed to death outside his Haldimand County cottage that night.

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But it was OPP Det. Gary Lazou who put it plainly to House during an interview the next morning at the OPP station in Cayuga.

“Somebody died there,” Lazou said to House. “A guy’s at home, minding his own business. Now he’s dead.”

The 31-year-old slumped in his chair, held his head in his hands, and groaned.

“I thought I took a vehicle or something,” House said. “And you’re saying I killed a guy?”

The video of House’s interview with police was played in the Cayuga courthouse on Tuesday, the second day of House’s murder trial. House has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.

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In the recorded interview, House told Lazou he was still feeling “disoriented” the day after he ran through a snowstorm without a jacket on and ended up handcuffed in the back of an ambulance, spitting blood.

He described his drug use that day, and the events leading up to when he ran away from a job site in Selkirk — where he had been renovating a house — complaining of ringing in his ears and intense headaches.

“My head felt like it was going to explode,” House told Lazou, explaining he believed the cause of the ringing was a camera going off in his ear.

He said he used a twig to dislodge the camera as he ran along the lakeshore in the direction of the Pender cottage about 1.5 kilometers away.

“The last thing I remember was running away,” House said, adding he “blacked out” and had no memory of going to Pender’s door or stabbing him.

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The next thing he remembered was waking up in hospital. He thought the cuts and bruises on his body were from a car accident.

“I can’t recall what happened at all,” House told Lazou in the interview.

“Well, a guy died,” Lazou replied. “A guy who tried to help you.”

A respondent House said he was “confused” about “how this happened (and) why this happened.”

Defense attorneys Beth Bromberg and Kristian Ferreira wanted Judge Michael Bordin to see the video to assess House’s mental state the day after Pender was killed.

The renowned winemaker was running for his life minutes after House turned up at Pender’s lakeside cottage east of Selkirk around 8 pm, bleeding from the head and in obvious distress.

According to an agreed statement of facts read into the court record on Monday, House thought he had a twig stuck in his ear and grabbed a kitchen knife to dislodge it after Pender let him inside. He then stabbed Pender and chased him to a neighboring driveway, where Pender died.

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House’s defense team argues their client is not criminally responsible for his actions because of an underlying mental disorder that caused a psychotic episode.

The Crown contends House is guilty because it was his choice to alter his mental state by taking cocaine and Percocet the day he killed Pender.

Bromberg said the video of the interview shows her client was still hallucinating the day after the murder.

She told the court House experienced “acute delirium” when he attacked Pender, but that his hallucinations continued “for much longer than a drug-induced psychosis would last.”

The court also viewed several hours of police body cam footage from House’s arrest at the scene the night Pender died, his ambulance trip and his admission to hospital.

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For much of the footage, House appears to be insensitive — writhing on the ground, moaning unintelligibly, and unable to answer basic questions from police officers and paramedics.

House, a father of five young children, sat quietly in the prisoner’s box as he watched the screen, occasionally holding his head in his hands.

He took the witness stand late on Tuesday.

Speaking barely above a whisper, House began to describe his childhood in Hamilton and Six Nations, which he said was marred by alcoholism and abuse at home.

His testimony is expected to continue on Wednesday.

JP Antonacci is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter based at the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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