‘I just wanted to calm her down': Burlington man on trial for murder says he killed wife in self-defence

A Burlington man charged with murdering his wife claims she attacked him, and he ended her life in self-defence.
Sandor Somogyi, 73, testified in his defence before a jury in Milton on Thursday, April 24.
He is accused of killing his wife Margit, 67, in her Regency Court apartment on Jan. 13, 2023.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charge of second-degree murder he faces.
The jury heard that Sandor and Margit had a troubled relationship prior to Margit's death.
Through a Hungarian interpreter, Sandor testified the pair separated, but did not divorce, after their children moved out of their Burlington home in 2016.
Sandor returned to his native Hungary to try and start a new business while Margit moved into her own apartment at
695 Regency Court
in Burlington.
Sandor said things did not work out for him in Hungary as he couldn't get the licensing needed to start a business and he returned to Canada after about a month.
He then moved into Margit's apartment despite his name not being on the lease.
Sandor would later confirm Margit did not add him to the lease because he had recently declared bankruptcy and because he had a criminal record with multiple convictions related to impaired driving.
During the trial the court heard from several neighbours who testified about loud arguments coming from the Somogyis' apartment.
When asked by defence attorney Donald Carter what these arguments were about Sandor said sometimes they were about their daughters' marriages.
Sandor said they didn't marry well, and his opinion upset Margit.
Other times he said the fights were about everyday things like her not liking how he did the cleaning or him making a mistake with the shopping.
However, during cross examination by assistant Crown attorney Maureen McGuigan Sandor acknowledged the arguments were also about his level of alcohol consumption, which Margit had a problem with.
The relationship between Margit and Sandor deteriorated further on Dec. 23, 2022, when Sandor became intoxicated and passed out in the second floor hallway of the Regency Court apartment building.
Sandor said this was the only time he had been that drunk and acknowledged property management had to support him to the elevator so he could get back to Margit's apartment on the fifth floor.
Police were called as a result of this incident and a week later property management served Margit with notice that Sandor had to be out of the building by noon on Jan. 13, 2023.
McGuigan said Margit was also told that if Sandor stayed and there was another incident Margit would be evicted as well.
The court heard that Sandor was still in the apartment on Jan. 12, 2023.
He told the jury that that day he had visited homeless shelters in Oakville and Hamilton to see if they could take him but was told they were full.
He said he also checked to see if he could stay in an apartment above an area church and was told to expect an answer the following day.
Sandor said Margit had regularly reminded him he would have to leave.
He said as Jan. 12 became Jan. 13, he packed a suitcase and planned to head to a motel at around noon.
The Burlington senior testified that at breakfast Margit began fighting with him.
'She told me to leave,' said Sandor.
'I told her to give me three hours.'
He said Margit continued shouting at him and he told her to calm down.
After about five minutes of Margit shouting, Sandor said, both decided to go back to bed.
He said sometime later the doorbell rang and Margit told him to answer it.
Sandor said when he answered the door the property manager asked if everything was OK and where Margit was.
He said he told the manager that Margit was in bed and not to disturb her.
After the property manager left Sandor said Margit again demanded he leave, but this time she physically attacked him in the bedroom.
'She was coming, and she was strongly trying to attack, and she scratched my face and my chest,' said Sandor.
He said she also slapped him on the forehead.
Sandor said he grabbed Margit by the shoulders to keep her away from him.
He said he then turned her around, grabbed her neck from behind with his hands and pushed her onto the bed.
'I told her quietly to calm down and everything will be OK,' said Sandor.
'I was holding her neck for about half a minute and then I let go because she went quiet.'
Sandor said he turned Margit over and called her name, but she was unresponsive.
'I didn't want to kill her,' he said.
'I just wanted to calm her down.'
An
autopsy
found that Margit died as a result of her neck being compressed.
Following Margit's death Sandor said he swallowed large doses of the various medications he was taking in an effort to kill himself.
He said he then wrote what was intended to be a suicide note on two sides of a piece of paper and left it on a pillow next to Margit's body.
Sandor confirmed the front side read: 'I Sandor Somogyi killed this woman. I did it rightfully. Please investigate.'
He said on the reverse side of the note he wrote: 'Blood speaks. The blood of my 3 daughters doesn't match.'
When asked about this message on the reverse side of the note Sandor said he believed his wife had been unfaithful and his two youngest daughters were not actually his.
Sandor's suicide attempt would ultimately fail, and he was arrested after attending the property manager's office and telling him to call police.
During cross examination McGuigan hammered Sandor on many of the details of his account.
She questioned whether Sandor had any intention of leaving, noting that no suitcase can be seen in police photos of the apartment closet where Sandor said he put it.
She also noted his clothing was still in the wardrobe.
Sandor said the suitcase is in a corner of the closet and can't be seen due to hanging clothing.
He also noted he was not done packing and said the clothing would only take him minutes to remove.
McGuigan questioned why he was still in the apartment at all with just hours remaining until he was supposed to leave.
Sandor said he was waiting to hear back from the church about potentially being able to stay there.
McGuigan suggested this story about a church apartment was a fiction, but Sandor maintained it was real.
The assistant Crown attorney also took aim at Sandor's account of the struggle with his wife noting that the door to the bedroom was right beside him and when he pushed her on the bed, he could have just escaped.
Sandor said he feared his wife would attack him again if he let her go.
He also said Margit used her arms to block him from leaving.
'It's easy to be smart after the fact,' he said when questioned further about not taking this escape route.
McGuigan also drew attention to testimony by Beata Pegoretti, Margit's daughter, who said she was worried about her mother and had been
calling her all morning but received no response
.
Indeed,
the Halton officer who found Margit's body
testified that when she entered the Somogyi apartment she noticed that Margit's cellphone was constantly ringing.
The assistant Crown attorney argued that by the time the property manager knocked on the door Margit was already dead, otherwise she would have picked up her phone.
Sandor said he did not hear Margit's phone ringing.
McGuigan then drew attention to the note and pointed out there was no mention of Sandor having killed Margit in self-defence.
Sandor said there was not enough room on the note for this and believed he had little time given the medication he had swallowed to kill himself.
Asked by McGuigan what he meant by stating 'I did it rightfully,' Sandor said he meant that he had 'rightfully' defended himself.
McGuigan suggested Sandor thought her death was done rightfully because she had cheated on him and had been forcing him out of the apartment.
Sandor disagreed.
McGuigan also argued that Sandor had included the information about Margit's alleged infidelity as an act of revenge and to taint their daughters' memory of her.
Sandor said he wanted the authorities to know what Margit was guilty of.
McGuigan suggested that in the early morning of Jan. 13, 2023, Margit threatened to call police to have Sandor removed at which point Sandor choked her to death.
She said the account of Margit attacking him was completely made up.
'You decided you were done listening to Margit about this and any other subject. You wanted peace and quiet permanently,' said McGuigan.
The assistant Crown attorney said that as he choked Margit she scratched him in self-defence and that is how he got the scratches later photographed by police.
Sandor denied this and said she attacked him.
With Sandor's testimony complete Carter said the defence's evidence was complete.
In the coming days, McGuigan and Carter will present closing arguments to the jury after which the jury will decide whether they believe Sandor's account of self-defence or that he is guilty of second-degree murder.

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In response to that, Carroccia pointed out the testimony of the Crown's witnesses about the complainant demanding to have sex. 'You just said to me he could have talked to her to find out more about her wants,' Carroccia said, 'but if I accept the evidence from your own witnesses, she was saying what her wants were, correct?' Donkers said that the witnesses testified about the complainant demanding intercourse, not oral sex. While Hart could only recall that instance of oral sex, he later said it was possible it happened again , after the Crown pointed out in cross-examination that McLeod told police he saw Hart receive oral sex twice. The complainant herself testified about giving oral sex to about three men in quick succession, though she never identified Hart to the police, nor that she performed oral sex on him twice. Players Brett Howden and Tyler Steenbergen identified Hart and McLeod as two of the three, while Dubé identified himself to police as the third. Howden testified he believes he saw Hart receive oral sex twice while in the room. 'So I should accept their evidence that Carter Hart probably got oral sex twice, but then find they're mistaken about Dillon Dubé?' the judge asked. 'If they're watching Carter Hart getting oral sex twice, they blink and miss Dillon Dubé? I just don't follow that argument.' Donkers countered that they might not have noticed Dubé because it happened so quickly. Formenton told police in 2018 that he followed the complainant into the bathroom after she had been demanding to have sex with men. There's a lack of evidence as to whether there was any conversation in the bathroom between the two, but Donkers argued that again, no steps were taken to confirm the complainant's consent before they had vaginal intercourse. Alex Formenton and his lawyers. But Carroccia had a question: What to make of Howden's testimony that he recalled that in response to the complainant's demands, Formenton said something along the lines of not wanting to do it front of everybody, and then he followed the complainant into the bathroom. 'Not so ambiguous, is it, in those circumstances?' Carroccia said. 'It's consistent with what she's offering, what she said, if I find that that was the sequence of events.' The judge reminded Donkers that Formenton doesn't have to prove that scenario, but rather the onus is on the Crown 'to disprove that that's what happened.' Donkers said the Crown doesn't have to prove or disprove 'any particular fact and issue beyond a reasonable doubt, what we have to prove is he's guilty of sexual assault.' 'I know that, Ms. Donkers,' the judge replied. While the Crown has argued that the defence has engaged in myth-based reasoning when questioning the complainant's behaviour in the room, Formenton's lawyer Hilary Dudding countered that, in fact, the prosecution was doing that. The Crown's reasoning 'really implies that for a woman to be assertively asking for sex in a group scenario is so inherently bizarre and odd that it requires some explanation other than that woman is consenting,' Dudding said. 'It's stereotypical thinking about what types of sex people like and don't like, what a woman might choose or not choose.' Dubé acknowledged in his 2018 police interview that he briefly received oral sex from the complainant, but omitted the fact that he slapped her naked buttocks. He did admit to slapping the complainant once or twice to a Hockey Canada investigator in 2022, in a statement that was excluded from the trial due to the 'unfair and prejudicial' way it was obtained. The complainant testified that multiple men were slapping her buttocks and that it hurt. The Crown argued that Carroccia should find Dubé slapped her twice — while she was on the ground after giving him oral sex, as witnessed by Steenbergen and on the bed while she was performing oral sex on McLeod, as witnessed by Howden. Dillon Dubé outside court. Dubé told police the oral sex happened in quick succession as the complainant performed on him, Hart, and McLeod — 'No chance for subjective consent,' Donkers said, but even if there was, it was cancelled by the complainant's fear of being in the room. Donkers argued that Dubé only mentioned getting oral sex to police because he 'knew he could try and portray that as consensual, based on comments he says (the complainant) was making about sex,' while he didn't mention the slapping because he knew that went too far as there is 'absolutely zero evidence' that the woman consented to that. 'He could not have had any legitimate belief she had communicated a willingness to be touched on her buttocks, gentle or hard, it does not matter,' Donkers said. 'That belief would have had to come from the myth that just because she had agreed to other things or appeared to agree to other things, that she would be OK being slapped. That is not a defence in law.' It's undisputed that Foote did the splits over the woman, Donkers said, but what's disputed is whether he was naked from the waist down, over which part of her body he did the splits, and whether his genitals touched her face. Court heard that the spits was a 'party trick' Foote often did, including on the dance floor at Jack's earlier that evening in June 2018. Cal Foote, centre, with his lawyers. Steenbergen partially witnessed Foote doing the splits, but couldn't tell if he was clothed below the waist, while Hart was adamant that Foote was wearing clothes and he did not physically touch the complainant, whom Hart said was laughing. The complainant 'viscerally testified' about someone doing the splits 'and having a penis in my face,' Donkers pointed out, although the complainant wasn't able to identify Foote. Given that this was a hotel room full of men 'amped up from a night of drinking' and who knew sexual activity with the woman was the focus in the room, it is 'abundantly clear' that Foote was called to the room to engage with the woman sexually as well, and specifically by doing the naked splits over her body, Donkers argued. 'This extraordinary event of June 19 for them called for extraordinary measures, not just an ordinary party trick they had seen as early as the night before at Jack's,' Donkers said. Cal Foote does the splits at Jack's Bar in London on the night of June 18-19, 2018, while teammates Brett Howden (on the far side of Foote, in white with a lighter-coloured backwards ball cap) and Dillon Dubé (in white on the near side of Foote) clear space on the dance floor. But even if the judge were to accept Hart's version that Foote did the splits while clothed and didn't touch the complainant, the judge should still conclude it was a sexual assault, Donkers said — even though the complainant maintained she was touched. 'It's reasonable to assume that in (Hart's) version of events, she thinks the touching is about to happen and in vulnerable circumstances of a sexual nature,' Donkers said. In the excluded statements from the Hockey Canada 2022 investigation that cannot form part of Carroccia's decision, both Formenton and Dubé said they witnessed Foote doing the splits, with Formenton specifying he wasn't wearing pants. 'So she's laying on the ground parallel between the beds,' Formenton said. 'I remember he takes pants off, top clothes still on, does splits over her upper body.' The players were 'compelled' to sit for an interview with Hockey Canada. But they weren't told Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .