Days before Ottawa public servant Lien Angelis was killed on the living-room floor of the apartment she shared with her husband, she went out of her way to exert control over her longtime secret lover.

Her secret lover of 15 years testified at the second-degree murder trial of Demetrios Angelis on Tuesday, revealing to the jury that she controlled him and sometimes listed demands to keep their affair going.

Two days before she was killed on June 8, 2008, Alykhan Nathoo recalled, she made a new request.

Lien Angelis, 38, demanded that he ask his new employer for a 15 per cent raise. Nathoo had only started the job seven weeks earlier and in his mind, it was a crazy request, he testified during a thorough cross-examination by defence lawyer Howard Krongold.

Krongold portrayed the dead woman as a cold and controlling woman. He suggested that Nathoo was forced to put his job on the line at her behest because Lien Angelis demanded to be the most important person in his life.

Nathoo at first disagreed, but told the court that his dead mistress wanted him to put her before himself and his job.

He also disagreed about her controlling ways, but the jury heard about the police statement he gave a day after she was found dead.

An Ottawa police detective was having a hard time understanding why Lien Angelis would demand that he ask for a raise from a new employer. Nathoo told police: “She wanted that control over me.”

The jury also heard another statement he gave to police: “She wanted me to put my job on the line.”

Jurors heard that Nathoo begged her to take him back. He expressed undying love in writing and agreed to a bunch of her demands, from banking to securing a down payment on an Ottawa condo to making sure he brushed his teeth twice a day.

Nathoo told police: “It’s hard to understand because of her nature.”

Jurors heard that she rarely cried about anything but that in her last week of life she did, leaning on Nathoo’s shoulder. It was the boyfriend, the jury heard Tuesday, who was enlisted to steal the hard-drive from the accused’s apartment for purposes of “snooping” in the weeks leading to a family court hearing.

The jury also heard about a letter Lien Angelis wrote in the months leading to her death, saying she was depressed and that no matter how hard she tried at home, it never made things better. She wrote that she became more demanding, more vain.

“She was very hard on herself in the letter,” Nathoo told court.

Angelis didn’t have many friends, let alone close ones. She was closest to Nathoo and was upset at him for not being more supportive.

The Crown has told the jury that Demetrios Angelis killed his wife after a violent fight in the living room of their apartment, then went to church as he did every Sunday.

Assistant Crown attorney Julie Scott has told the jury that Demetrios Angelis had complained that he had to do most of the domestic duties and that his 38-year-old wife was an unfit mother.

The trial continues on Wednesday at the Elgin Street courthouse.

gdimmock@ottawacitizen.com

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