Disturbing new details are emerging from the murder trial of a Vancouver man accused of killing a mother of five.
Daniel Alphonse Paul is charged with the second-degree murder of his girlfriend, mother of five Crystal Rose Paull, in 2015.
Grief was palpable outside a B.C. Supreme Court room Monday as the jury heard details about her death.
Paull's family listened as prosecutors outlined the details of how they say Crystal, who also went by Rose, was violently killed.
"There is no justice, Rose is dead. She's not coming back and every time something comes up, the scabs open up. The wound is open," her mother Diane Paull said.
"When this is over we can begin our healing journey. We need that. We miss her so much."
Her spirit aunt, Karen Clarke, said she was speechless when she heard that Paull was dead.
"There aren't really any words that can describe how your heart breaks in that second where you hear the news that she's gone," Clarke said.
"For the whole family… Rose was the central figure. She was the glue."
The man accused of Paull's murder was her boyfriend at the time. The Crown alleges Paul beat the victim to death, then left her body in his apartment near Main Street and 22nd Avenue for weeks, living with the badly decomposing remains.
None of the allegations have been proven in court, and the defence won't present its side for several days in a trial expected to last three weeks.
The building's landlord testified that she'd found Paull's body after noticing a foul odour coming from the suite of the accused. She said she entered the apartment on two separate occasions to investigate.
"The smell was overpowering," she told the court.
"I saw legs from the knee down, and yes, they were off-colour."
The landlord said she called police immediately, a call that sparked a search for Paul and a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. Paul was arrested a month later.
With a report from CTV Vancouver's Scott Roberts
