Jury gets glimpse of accused killer's family life as murder trial for his mother's death continues

The jury at the trial of a man charged with stabbing his own mother to death in 2019 got a window into the accused killer's bizarre upbringing for the first time on Wednesday.

Crown lawyers in the case are pulling back the curtain on Duncan Sinclair's family life in an attempt to establish a motive in the death of Rae Cara Carrington, who was stabbed 12 times while she was at work in downtown Toronto's underground PATH system.

Sinclair, 22, was 19 at the time of the killing. He has pleaded not guilty to a single count of first-degree murder in Superior Court in Toronto.

Det. Sherri Plunkett testified in court's afternoon session, telling the jury that a Toronto police investigation conducted by the child and youth advocacy unit revealed the Sinclair family was largely shut off from the outside world. The children had no access to schooling or medical care, and were living a transient lifestyle complete with aliases to elude authorities and children's aid, she said.

All of this was dictated by Sinclair's father, Paul, she told the court. According to an agreed statement of facts submitted at the trial, Paul Sinclair was convicted of 12 offences related to child maltreatment in March of 2020.

"The eldest kids and mom just worked and worked and worked, and brought all the money home to Paul," she said.

"It was his way or the highway. He ruled with an iron fist."

Plunkett testified that Paul Sinclair was a hoarder and the family lived in filthy situations. She said sometimes they didn't even have plumbing, and would be forced to use buckets as a toilet. Sinclair's father told his children to shower anywhere from once every two weeks to once a month, so they wouldn't alert landlords to how many people were actually living in their apartments, she said.

"He claimed to have home schooled [the kids], but he didn't," Plunkett said, adding that Paul Sinclair would staple curtains to their windows so the children "couldn't look out and no one could look in."

The family moved whenever someone started asking questions about them, she said.

Plunkett testified that according to other family members, Duncan Sinclair and one of his brothers were "minions" of their father.

"They very much were brainwashed by him or were on his side, and had adopted his way of thinking," she said.

Though Plunkett provided a wealth of information Wednesday, Justice Anne Molloy cautioned the jury that much of her testimony constituted hearsay evidence. But, the judge added, it still had relevance as the Crown is seeking to establish that Sinclair had a motive to kill his mother.

"This officer has been giving a lot of evidence about what other people told her," Molloy told the jury.