Murder trial of man accused of killing daughter begins

The trial of a Kitimat man charged with killing his teenage daughter in November 2006 begins Monday in the B.C. Interior town of Terrace.

Sources have told CBC News that Blair Donnelly's lawyer will argue his client is not criminally responsible of second-degree murder because of his mental state.

Donnelly's trial is scheduled to run three days.

Police have released few details about the death, beyond the fact that they responded to a 911 call from a Kitimat home.

Blair Donnelly, 47 at the time of the incident, is a Kitimat electrician who once trained as a pastor and helped establish a church in Ontario.

His daughter, Stephanie Joy Donnelly, 16, an accomplished figure skater who coached small children, was killed the night before a big competition.

Shawn Allen, the Donnelly family's pastor, drank coffee and prayed with Blair Donnelly the morning of the death, and a few days later presided over Stephanie Donnelly's funeral.

"There were a lot of girls, rows and rows of little girls crying, and they're sitting there with their moms and dads," said Allen on Friday. "You could see how it was affecting them."

People in Kitimat are still trying to deal with the death, said Allen.

"How do you make sense out of something that makes no sense at all?" said Allen. "You don't. If you try, you will spend the rest of your life chasing a ghost and living in the shadows."

Stephanie Donnelly's death is the second case of its kind in recent years in Kitimat.

In March 2005, Rajinder Singh Atwal was convicted of killing his teenage daughter, 17-year-old Amandeep Atwal, in a fit of rage in July of 2003.