Girl Can’t Remember Stabbing Daughter Was Witness To Fight That Ended In Her Mother’s Death

The key witness nervously raised the wrong hand to be sworn into court, then forgot almost everything about the night she turned 10 years old and her mother was stabbed to death.

Police said Lisa Birnel was likely the only witness to a brawl between her parents that ended with a 12-inch butcher knife stuck in her mother’s chest.

But the long-haired Otis Orchards fifth-grader couldn’t recall much when she testified Thursday.

“I don’t remember,” Lisa said repeatedly, sometimes staring at her father, Rick Birnel, who sat facing her, just 15 feet away.

Birnel, 39, owner of Rick’s Carpet in the Valley, is charged with second-degree murder in the March 30 death of his estranged wife, Mary “Cookie” Birnel.

The volatile couple apparently wrestled for control of a long knife in the early morning hours while a houseful of children slept downstairs.

Another witness testified Thursday that Cookie Birnel was extremely strung out on drugs much earlier in the night.

She started the fight, the prosecution has acknowledged. Birnel maintains he was defending himself.

When police arrived at the Spokane Valley home, Cookie Birnel was on her back with a blade sunk 5 inches into her chest.

The 36-year-old’s body was riddled from knee to scalp with a total of 31 stabs and cuts - many of which could have killed her, according to an autopsy report.

Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Dannette Allen predicted in her opening statement that Lisa Birnel would testify that she saw her father on top of her mother, then saw a 12-inch butcher knife in her chest.

Lisa didn’t go that far.

“What did you see?” asked Allen when the girl who collects humorous masks took the stand in Superior Court.

“I don’t remember,” said Lisa, who awoke when her parents started arguing and went upstairs.

Allen reminded Lisa of a past conversation they had shared about that night.

“Do you remember seeing your mom and dad out there?”

No response.

“What were your mom and dad doing?”

“Wrestling,” Lisa said.

“Who was on top?”

“They were rolling around,” Lisa said.

“Lisa, did you see a knife?”

“No.”

Allen paused, then asked the question again in a different way.

Lisa said she did recall seeing the knife - when it was in her mother’s chest.

“Where was it before it was in her chest?”

“I don’t remember,” Lisa said. She looked directly at her father.

After the girl’s brief testimony, Anthony

Yeager, 18, gave jurors a first-hand account of Cookie Birnel’s last evening.

Yeager, who was dating one of Birnel’s daughters and living at the Birnel home the night of the stabbing, said Cookie Birnel was high on methamphetamines when she picked him up from work at about 10 p.m.

She drove fast and crazy, he recalled. Yeager said they first tried to pick up a cake for Lisa’s 10th birthday party, then went to a friend’s house.

Cookie Birnel couldn’t sit still and at one point went through a sleeping man’s pockets at the friend’s house, Yeager said, where she found an amphetamine known as a “black beauty.”

Yeager said she told him she was going to kill her husband. “She thought he was trying to take the girls from her,” Yeager recalled.

Once home, Yeager said he went to bed and didn’t wake up until he heard screaming.

The Birnels had been married 13 years. Both of them had been arrested at least twice for domestic violence, but charges were never filed. They had a total of five daughters, two from her prior marriage, ranging from a toddler to a 17-year-old.

Surrounded by friends and family, Rick Birnel looked relieved after Lisa’s testimony, occasionally even smiling during a break in the trial that is expected to last into next week.

An hour later, Birnel was back in court, shielding or shutting his eyes as pathologist George Lindholm showed the jurors photographs of each and every one of the gashes on Cookie Birnel’s body.

, DataTimes