Crystal Crowchild on trial 3rd time for fatally stabbing man in heart

For athird time, Crystal Crowchild is on trial for the murder ofArefNassereddine.

Crowchild was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in 2011, a year after Nassereddine, 64, died on his kitchen floor from a stab wound to the heart.

She was found guilty twice, but each timethe Alberta Court of Appeal overturned those convictions and ordered new trials.

Crowchild, now 33,has been behind bars since her arrest in 2011.

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There is no question Nassereddine was stabbed to death by Crowchild on March 17, 2010, but the issue at trial willalmost certainly be whether she acted in self-defence.

In 2010, Crowchild was 25 years old and addicted to crack cocaine. She had just met Nassereddine at the Drop-In Centre.

Though she'd always told herself she would "never sink to that level," she accepted Nassereddine's offer of $60 in exchange for sex, and the two took a bus to his home, said prosecutor Rosalind Greenwood in her opening statement.

Greenwood then outlined the facts of the case for Justice Robert Hall.

On the morning he was killed, Nassereddine's wife was at work and his daughter was at school.

Wife, daughter discover body

After the two had sex, he gave her $40, refusing to hand over the additional $20 they'd agreed on unless she gave him oral sex.

Crowchild refused and went downstairs. Nassereddine followed her. She stabbed him four times including once through his heart.

When she was arrested a year later, she told police: "It happened and I panicked and I took his key, then I locked his door."

Hours later, around 3:30 p.m., Nassereddine's wife and daughter found him dead on the kitchen floor.

Crowchild's DNA would eventually be discovered through the police investigation on his jeans and under his nails.

'It's my own fault'

The issue at trial will be intent, said prosecutor Rose Greenwood.

It is expected Crowchild's lawyer, Jim Lutz, will argue she acted in self-defence when she stabbed Nassereddine.

At her previous trials, Crowchild said shetried to leaveNassereddine's home buthe followed her and grabbed her arm.

As part of the homicide investigation, police recorded Crowchild's conversations with friends and family during which she told them she "f--ked up bad" and said "it's my own fault."

Greenwood will call 13 witnesses over the two-week trial.

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