Rick Patrick walked out of the Barrie courthouse a free man Friday evening after being found not guilty of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Christopher Forrester.

“I appreciate that, but not right now, I’m sorry,” said Patrick, who became emotional when asked to comment shortly after leaving the courtroom.

Patrick soon stepped into cold and windy conditions — nearly identical to those on the night when Forrester died nine days before Christmas in 2021 — and headed out into the night.

“This was absolutely the right decision,” said Parick’s defense attorney, Alison Craig. “…the tragic set of circumstances that brought us here.”

Ten members of Forrester’s family were present for the verdict, including his mother, father and two brothers. They made no comment, but were clearly upset as they passed Patrick on his way out of the courtroom.

Three of the jurors were seen wiping away tears. Judge Clyde Smith, who presided over the three-week trial at the Supreme Court, dismissed the panel shortly thereafter.

There was no doubt that the then-65-year-old man killed Forrester, a 36-year-old Orillia native who was living in Patrick’s trailer, after stabbing him once in his driveway on Galloway Boulevard in Midland.

The Crown was trying to prove the retired Midland man had the requisite intent for second-degree murder or the lesser charge of manslaughter because he failed to meet the higher bar.

Forrester’s gloves were found at the scene; According to an Ontario Provincial Police officer, one model of these gloves was not authorized by police because they were known to cause injuries. A few days later, wire cutters were also found a short distance away by the crime scene technician; They had apparently been purchased there by the deceased on the night in question.

Although he told the same OPP officer who found the gloves that he “just wanted to talk” to Patrick before he died, this suggested that Forrester may have had malicious intentions when he arrived at Patrick’s home, located a short distance from the trailer.

Patrick was on the stand for two days and claimed he came home on a cold, windy evening and was attacked, when he said Forrester lifted his arm. Patrick stated that he struggled to get the knife he was carrying for protection.

“I could feel the cold steel of the knife,” Patrick testified, but claimed he remembered little about the fatal encounter because it happened so quickly.

The Crown had a difficult case. The agreed facts in the case and other evidence, such as 911 calls, not only detailed the sad end of Forrester’s life just before Christmas three years ago, but also offered a template for Patrick’s defense.

It also showed evidence of Forrester’s deteriorating mental health when Crown attorney Dennis Chronopoulos tried to use the long-running landlord-tenant dispute as the reason for Patrick’s malevolence.

These struggles were initially ignored by Smith, but the Crown’s own evidence revealed this again. Smith reversed his earlier decision midway through the trial, eventually allowing Craig to point to Forrester’s mental state as a contributing factor to his client’s fear of him.

Forrester had a criminal record for assaulting a woman, which led directly to him being kicked out of his previous accommodation at a hotel in Fesserton. The court heard Patrick moved into his caravan but soon stopped paying rent and exhibited increasingly strange behaviour. Towards the end of his life, Patrick was suspected of committing multiple acts of vandalism on his property, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

It wasn’t always like this between the two old friends. Forrester’s social media accounts make their friendship clear; at least one Facebook post from March 2020. In this post, Forrester details his struggle to find suitable accommodation after a stint in hospital and around the time he pleaded guilty to an assault charge.

The first response to his post was “A successful future ahead of us.”

This message was from Rick Patrick, who killed him 21 months later with the knife Forrester had given him for Christmas.