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Earlier, speaking directly to Kachkar, Russell’s father Glenn said Kachkar had smashed his family into pieces.

“You have no idea how much grief and pain you have caused,” he said.

“When you ran my son down with that plow and left him bleeding to death in the snow, a large part of myself died.”

Tracey Russell, the officer’s sister, said she needed her brother to talk to.

“It has been two years and the pain is still very much a part of our life now…. Ryan has a little boy, Nolan, he is a lovely baby… [who] will never know his daddy.”

The court heard weeks of evidence about Kachkar’s apparent decline in the weeks and months before the slaying. Estranged from his family, he drifted between shelters and a friend’s couch, drawing up bizarre business plans that included a partnership with American socialite Kim Kardashian.

About a week before Sgt. Russell’s death, jurors heard, Kachkar approached a resident inside a St. Catharines shelter and asked: “Do you think if I do something bad, will God still love me or will I have to walk away from God?”

Just hours before the crime, Kachkar bewildered his friends by rambling about “white Jesus,” and told a doctor he had trouble “thinking,” the court heard.

The defence brought forward three forensic psychiatrists, each of whom testified that Kachkar suffered from a complicated mental disorder and was likely in a psychotic state that January morning, when he ran barefoot into the snow and commandeered an idling roadside plow.

In reply, the Crown called upon a series of doctors who assessed Kachkar in jail after the fact — and none saw any signs of the alleged psychosis. However, when considering the issue of criminal responsibility, the jury had to examine the accused’s mental state at the time of the crime. On that point, the Crown cited a certain rationality and consistency to Kachkar’s behaviour on Jan. 12, 2011, while the defence suggested he had split from reality.

The court heard that for about half an hour that morning, Kachkar went on a rampage around the area of Avenue Road, between Bloor and Dupont. He crashed through the front glass doors of a high-end car dealership, drove on the wrong side of the road, pulled multiple u-turns and smashed into several taxis. He screamed at passersby about “Chinese technology,” Facebook and the Taliban.

Around 6 a.m., Sgt. Russell — a married father of a then-two-year-old son — moved in to intervene. But instead of surrendering, the court heard, Kachkar headed straight for the veteran officer and his cruiser. Sgt. Russell fired three shots toward the snowplow, but to no avail; the truck continued advancing, knocking the officer off his feet and striking his head. He was dead within an hour.