Before bleeding to death on Boxing Day 2004, Nicholas Dill told his brother to tell everyone he loved them.

?When he said he was gone this time I knew he was gone because he was indestructible,? Mr. Dill?s brother Andre Dill told a Supreme Court jury on Thursday during the murder trial of Andre Hypolite, whom Mr. Dill?s brother also said he saw holding a large kitchen knife and lunging towards his brother.

?The knife was back to strike position,? Mr. Dill told Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrossen. ?He was heading straight back towards my brother.?

Hypolite, 33, of no fixed abode, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr. Dill and wounding Stacey Pike with intent to cause her grievous bodily harm on December 26, 2004.

At around 8 a.m. on the day in question, Mr. Dill had just woken up in his room ? less than 20 feet away from his brother?s apartment window? when he heard a ?crazy noise? next door.

?I could tell it was a fight,? he said. ?Furniture was moving and being pushed. I could not hear anyone talking.?

He said he did not want his 14-year-old son to have to listen to a fight so he closed his window and called the Police, he said.

?We don?t even play loud music. If there is noise, something is wrong,? he said.

After reporting a domestic disturbance to Police, he went straight around to his brother?s ?pad? where he saw his mother turning off a garden hose.

?She said, ?He?s going crazy in there,?? he said. ?I went there, standing in between two windows looking through. My brother was against the wall in this big area. I was shouting out, ?Stop, stop. Whatever you?re doing stop,? because I thought he was hitting Stacey.?

However, he soon saw Hypolite covered in blood through the window holding a knife that Ms Pike tried to take away from him.

?Andre went towards her. I thought he was going to strike out at her with the knife. Then I saw him go like that,? he said, moving his fist away from him in a stabbing motion. ?And I turned my head.

?The direction the knife was facing was towards my brother but he also turned it towards Stacey,? he said. ?He went at her.?

He said he knew his brother was getting hurt and he had his hands in front of him as if ? ?Preparing to knock a strike out of the way.?

Mr. Dill and Hypolite wore nothing but their ?hair and fingernails,? he said, and after he saw Hypolite raise the knife and go towards his brother, he went back inside and called an ambulance, he said.

?Your brother?s been stabbed! Help me out!? he heard Ms Pike scream when he went back outside to see Mr. Dill lying in a small bathtub in his kitchen covered in blood.

?It was everywhere. I told him, ?You know I don?t want to see this.? I told him to keep pressure on his abdomen. That?s where the towels were just drenched. He had his head slumped over.?

Mr. Dill?s brother remembered what Hypolite looked like, having met him at the house ?once or twice before?.

He told the court that he and his brother had never fought.

?We were very friendly. People always said we never fought. We had arguments but no one ever saw us argue,? he said.

His animal-loving, ?hard character,? brother had ten cats, he said, ?would not hurt a fly? and would prefer to hurt himself before hurting anyone else.

?He was as free as a bird. When he was hungry he worked to get food.

?He took care of those cats before he even eats,? he said. ?(Ms Pike) worked with him. They did very good together working. She would push him if he did not feel like going.?

Mr. Dill worked as a mason, installed windows and doors and painted homes, his brother said.

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Mark Pettingill, it was revealed that Mr. Dill had slept outside the Pearman?s Hill, Warwick, family home in a tent from 18 years old because of his cocaine addiction.

When Mr. Pettingill asked if he was shocked by the death of his brother, he replied: ?Yeah, but I knew it was going to happen. I just did not know when.?

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) forensic biology specialist Joy Kearsey told Senior Crown counsel Paula Tyndale that Hypolite?s DNA was found outside Mr. Dill?s apartment ? including three drops of blood on a red motorcycle found at Lisa Caines? Raynor?s Drive, Southampton home as well as along a pathway on the northern exterior of the Pearman?s Hill home.

Mr. Dill and Ms Pike?s blood was found on several items of clothing inside the crime scene, Ms Kearsey said.

However, Mr. Dill?s blood was also discovered on a belt loop on a pair of Ruff and Tuff jeans seized from Raynor?s Drive that contained Hypolite?s DNA on the inside of the garment.

But under cross-examination, the forensic expert conceded that cross-contamination of a crime scene could render her results effectively useless.

?If a cat was walking around a bloody scene, possibly if it were to pick up blood in its paws, it could transfer it to other areas of the scene,? Ms Kearsey said.

The trial continues before Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves.