Man Gets Life in Murders of 3 Relatives

A man who stabbed his sister to death, along with her two small children, was sentenced to life in prison Friday after his mother testified it would be a “just sentence.”

Christopher Bernard pleaded guilty to murder in the Oct. 4 slayings of Tricia Doyle, 30; her daughter Gillian, 4; and her son James, 2.

“I lost more than anyone could have possibly imagined,” Patricia Bernard, the mother of Christopher Bernard and Doyle, testified. Addressing her son, she said: “You committed a horrific act and you need professional help. We feel life in prison without parole is a just sentence.”

Bernard, 36, looked around the courtroom as his mother spoke, and didn’t show any emotion.

Of her daughter, Patricia Bernard said, “She loved life and everyone in it.”

Doyle’s husband, Robert, called Bernard a coward, adding, “May you rot in hell for eternity.”

Police said they found the bodies of Doyle and her daughter partly unclothed and suspected Bernard of sexually assaulting them, although prosecutor Jeffery Strelzin said DNA tests were inconclusive.

Bernard struggled with addictions to Oxycontin and cocaine, and had drugs in his system when he tried to commit suicide after the killings. He had run onto a highway, where he was hit by a truck.

“I take full responsibility for my actions,” he said in Hillsborough County Superior Court. “If my mind was not polluted by drugs, today would be a different day.”