Calgary murder suspect Alex (Aixin) Xu testified Tuesday that his mother's face appeared 'monstrously deformed' when he bludgeoned her with a large rock while under the influence of LSD. Xu, 23, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his mother, Alice (Jingying) Ai, on June 30, 2023.
Xu told defence lawyer Dale Fedorchuk that he had walked away from the emergency room at Foothills Medical Centre in the early morning hours, with his mother following him to a darkened area between two nearby houses. He had been taken to the hospital over concerns by his parents that he had overdosed on LSD.
'I looked back at her face and it was monstrously deformed in a spiral-like pattern,' Xu said, comparing what he saw to images in a graphic Japanese horror series called Uzumaki. 'I screamed out loud ... I punched where her face should be, she'd fallen over, lost her balance. I kicked her head.'
'I picked up a nearby rock and I struck her head twice and following the second strike, there was a huge amount of blood spatter that shocked me. I dropped the rock, I'd fallen back and I simultaneously thought 'I just killed her' and 'this could not possibly be real.''
Fedorchuk asked the accused how he felt emotionally immediately after the incident. 'I had felt, like, an immense visceral fear,' Xu replied. He said the graphic horror series shows people 'being deeply deformed' and that's how he saw his mother in that moment. 'That's what my mind perceived, like a demonic entity had just come out of nowhere and was going to eat my soul,' Xu said.
Under cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Vicki Faulkner, the accused agreed he said in his 911 call that he murdered his mother. 'You didn't tell them you murdered a demon,' Faulkner noted. 'After what had happened, I realized what was lying there was my mother. You don't call the police telling them I murdered a demon,' Xu said. 'Why not?' Faulkner asked. 'Because that's absurd,' he said. 'I wanted everything to make sense.'
He also agreed with Faulkner's suggestion there were times he was angry with his parents and that night, his mother was 'bugging' him.
