Brian Marbury, 47, has pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree murder for the death of Sahra Bulle, 36.
Her body was discovered in June 2023, one week after she was reporting missing by staff at Hiatus House, a local emergency shelter for women fleeing abusive relationships.
Bulle's mother, Fartuma Kusow spent an entire day explaining her daughter's relationship with Marbury to the jury of seven women and seven men.
"Intellectually, she agreed with me, he was not good for her but emotionally she wasn't ready to extract herself from him," Kusow told them.
Her daughter met Marbury in 2004.
Within a month, Kusow says her daughter came home with a bruised thigh; Bulle said Marbury "flicked her".
The couple got married in 2008, against Kusow wishes.
Over the course of their relationship, Kusow said her daughter would go through cycles of distancing herself from her family to be with Marbury to then needing her mothers' support and coming home with injuries.
At least 10 times, between 2008 and 2016, Bulle called her mother, asking to be picked up in Detroit and brought back to Windsor to get away from Marbury.
Each time, Kusow alleges her daughter was injured with bruises or black eyes.
Each time, Bulle either minimized Marbury's alleged actions following a fight or her daughter would make excuses, according to Kusow.
For a time, Marbury and Bulle lived in Kusow's family home in Windsor but Kusow testified the couple got into heated arguments and fights.
"This needs to stop otherwise I can't have you here," Kusow recalls telling Marbury.
He would leave the home, but Bulle would inevitably reconcile with him.
By 2023, Kusow gave her daughter an ultimatum: her support was contingent on Bulle reporting Marbury's alleged abuse to police and that she go to "detox".
In early May, Kusow testified her daughter checked into Hiatus House, because she didn't want Marbury to attend her family home.
Bulle even told her mother she wanted to leave Windsor, find a job and break up with Marbury for good. That day was Kusow's birthday.
"It was the best birthday present," Kusow told the jury.
The last time Kusow talked to her daughter, Friday, May 26, 2023, she assumed she was headed to Hiatus House for the night from work.
Bulle was on her way to a Huron Church Road hotel to meet Marbury. She was not seen alive again.
Defence accuses fabrications and deceit
Defence lawyer Ken Marley started his cross-examination about Bulle's alleged drinking.
Kusow admitted her daughter had a problem with alcohol, that got worse when she was around Marbury.
She told the jury another condition of her support for Bulle was to go to a detox program in the city which Bulle never did.
Marley described Bulle of being "deceitful" in what she chose to tell her mother and what she didn't. In one example, Kusow was unaware that her daughter was denied entry into the United States because she had a marijuana joint in her possession.
And, Marley questioned why Kusow would automatically believe Marbury caused Bulle's injuries and she never believed her daughters' reasons.
"She minimized his actions," Kusow argued. "I know what I saw, and I know what I was told."
"She (Bulle) told you what you wanted to hear," Marley argued. He alleges Kusow never like Marbury, even from the very beginning.
Marley was specifically critical of Kusow for never documenting any of the injuries her daughter allegedly suffered, nor did she ever report them to police in Windsor or Detroit.
"She does not want to be the reason another black man is arrested by police," Kusow recalls her daughter telling her.
The trial will continue Thursday.