Left: Daryl Berman. Right: David Berman (Facebook/Manchester Evening News).
A 71-year-old woman is currently facing a murder trial in the UK, accused of fatally stabbing her 84-year-old husband with a kitchen knife—a weapon she claims he accidentally “slipped” onto. Reports from the local media reveal she later marked the day of his death with a cryptic “bye bye” note in her calendar, adorned with two kisses and a heart, written just hours after his demise.
During the trial, Daryl Berman shared this detail, stating, “I put it on at the end of the day when everybody had gone and I was ready to go up to bed,” as reported by the Manchester Evening News.
The death of David Berman, which occurred in March, was initially classified as an accident. However, further investigations suggested possible involvement by his wife, leading authorities to leave David’s body in their home until an undertaker could retrieve it.
Testifying in court, Daryl Berman recounted lying beside her husband’s body multiple times while waiting for it to be collected. “I lay down next to David,” she tearfully stated. “I kissed him and stroked his arm. I did it quite a few times,” she recalled, according to the Evening News.
Charged with murder, Daryl Berman reportedly explained to police that on March 13, she was eating a chicken salad sandwich with a knife on a food tray. Her husband, David, had offered to take the tray to the kitchen. She recounted hearing “what sounded like a stumble or a fall” shortly after he entered the kitchen. Rushing in, she found David face down on the floor, the knife embedded in his chest near his right armpit, as detailed in police interviews referenced by the Manchester Evening News.
Daryl Berman, who is charged with murder, allegedly told police in interviews that she was eating a chicken salad sandwich on March 13 and had a knife with her on a food tray when David Berman came in and offered to take the tray into the kitchen for her as she was finishing up. Daryl Berman said that as her husband went into the kitchen, she heard “what sounded like a stumble or a fall” before finding David Berman on the ground, face down, with the knife in his chest near his right armpit.
“It was like a stumble or a slip,” Daryl Berman recalled in court. “Then I heard another noise. It was like a groan. I jumped up and screamed and ran in,” she said.
Daryl Berman claims she found David Berman lying face down, making a “gurgling” sound, after the alleged fall. There was “tons of blood” on the ground, according to her statements to police, which she allegedly didn’t notice at first, the Evening News reports.
“I sort of looked down, moved his head a bit, and I thought ‘what on earth is all this gravy? We don’t have gravy,’” Daryl Berman allegedly recalled during one of her police interviews. “It was the amount of blood. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. I got the shock of my life because I didn’t know where it was coming from.”
The septuagenarian said she called police after finding David Berman, with a dispatcher talking her through performing “compressions” on him and asking where he was bleeding from.
“I said, ‘I haven’t got the foggiest,’” Daryl Berman allegedly recounted to police.
Asked in court Monday whether she killed her husband, Daryl Berman said, “Absolutely not,” according to the Evening News.
A local medical examiner who performed David Berman’s autopsy took the stand last week and said Daryl Berman’s story about her husband falling onto the knife was “inconceivable,” given the combination of the stab wound and a “defensive injury” that was found on one of his fingers.
“I think in broad terms, looking at the general population, accidental stab wounds with knives are exceedingly rare,” Dr. Philip Lumb said. “I personally have not come across one.”
Police have never revealed a motive for David Berman’s alleged murder. Daryl Berman’s trial is scheduled to continue this week.
