Man Says He Tripped, Stabbed Wife Husband Doesn’t Recall How Woman Received Her Other Stab Wounds

The way Rick Birnel recalls it, he pried the knife out of his wife’s back, then tripped over her and the blade accidentally entered her chest., He says they both had their hands on the handle of the 12-inch butcher knife almost the entire time he frantically tried to defend himself against his estranged, drug-crazed spouse.

The jury heard Birnel’s testimony Friday during the last day of a murder trial in the March 30 death of Mary “Cookie” Birnel.

The jury then listened to Deputy Prosecutor Dannette Allen suggest Birnel’s version was unbelievable, and that his actions far exceeded the definition of self-defense.

If Birnel was the one under siege, how did he suffer only a hand wound that required six stitches while his wife endured 31 cuts and stabs, she asked.

“What threatening action was Cookie taking that it was necessary to stab her in the back?”

Birnel said it all happened fast and in the dark, and that he never intentionally stabbed his wife of 13 years. During the fight, the knife ended up in her back, he said. Birnel remembers only pulling the knife out, then tripping over his wife before the blade accidentally entered her chest.

After hearing closing arguments late Friday, Spokane County Superior Court jurors left Judge Kathleen O’Connor’s courtroom to discuss the case.

The jury could find Birnel not guilty, or guilty of second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter or second-degree manslaughter.

In more than two hours of testimony, Birnel described an often-violent, drug-laced marriage that led to his wife’s death.

Birnel, 40, says he was sitting sober and cross-legged on the floor of Cookie’s bedroom at 4 a.m., waiting to further confront her about her reckless spending and methamphetamine habits.

The prosecution acknowledged Cookie grabbed a knife and started the clash, while the couple’s five daughters slept downstairs in their Valley home.

“She came at me,” Birnel said. “I didn’t have a place to run. It was fast. It was dark. … All I remember is slamming, banging, rolling over things to get up. … I can’t tell you exactly what happened.”

Cookie’s mother, Mary MacInnes, left the courtroom, hunched over and crying during Birnel’s testimony. She broke down again while the prosecution detailed her daughter’s wounds. “I’m just exhausted,” she whispered.

Birnel’s attorney, John Rodgers, asked the jury to think of Cookie’s grisly death in this light: “The most inadvertent, schmuck-like accident can produce a horrible, gory mess.”

Allen asked the jury to focus on photographs. She showed pictures of the couple after the knife fight - Cookie’s slashed corpse alongside her husband’s muscular, almost unmarred frame.

Allen asked the jury if Cookie’s hand could have been controlling the knife when it went six inches into her back, punctured a lung or poked deep into her side.

“At some point the defendant got the knife and cut loose on Cookie,” Allen asserted.

She said the wounds, not Birnel, told the true story. “He ran out of places to stab her in the chest,” she said.

The only witness to any of the fight was Lisa Birnel, who had just turned 10 that evening. When it came to testifying Thursday, she remembered almost nothing beyond the sight of the knife sticking out of her mother’s chest.

Rick Birnel is the owner of Rick’s Carpet. He currently has custody of the couple’s five children.

His attorney described him as the responsible parent, caring for the children while irresponsible Cookie binged and abused her children.

Birnel also was the money man, securing loans to expand his carpet business and paying all the family bills.

Birnel’s oldest daughter, Jennifer, and two teenagers who have lived at the Birnel home, testified that Cookie was irrational and abusive when high or drunk.

During a trial break, Birnel and Jennifer hugged and cried together.

Birnel said he has been sober for years, but admitted he was once out of control, that he briefly left the family about a decade ago.

“I missed Cook.” He got teary at the recollection. “I begged her to let me come home, and she let me.”

The jury also heard detailed accounts of the couple’s past fights.

One time Cookie allegedly chased Birnel with scissors. At another, she went after him with a knife.

Birnel once picked Cookie up at the airport, got in a fight with her and left her injured on the curb.

On another night, Birnel found Cookie naked on the floor with another man, witnesses said he slapped her around and threatened to kill her.

, DataTimes