A woman who lives in England is being accused of murdering her husband and writing a questionable note in her calendar. Daryl Berman said she was in another room when she heard her husband hit the ground. As she rushed to his side, she knew something was wrong and called for help. Emergency services and police deemed her husband’s death an accident, and there wasn’t much of a case. After further investigation, however, authorities began to doubt his death was accidental. Because his wife was the only one in the home with him and found his body, she became the only suspect, but she maintains her innocence.
Daryl Berman took the stand on December 15, 2025, the Manchester Evening News reported. The 71-year-old widow is accused of stabbing her husband, 84-year-old David Berman, to death on March 13, 2025. This was the first time she took the stand to defend herself.
“Did you murder your husband?” she was asked by lawyer Michael Hayton KC asked her. “I did not,” she replied, per the outlet.
Prosecutors are arguing that Berman stabbed her husband to death in their home “for a reason known only to her” before telling police his death was an accident. The woman told police that her husband of 27 years fell on a vegetable knife she had been using for her lunch when he cleared her plate.
Berman explained to the court that her husband “was just not coping that well” after his recent retirement. “His hands were shaking a bit,” she shared, per the Evening News. “His balance was not that good.” She described their life together as happy and loving. “I loved him. I just wanted to look after him and care for him,” she said.
On the day of his death, Berman told the court, she had a sandwich when she got home, which she placed on a tray. Her husband offered to take the tray into the kitchen when she was finished.
When he left the room, she told jurors, she heard a “noise like a fall or a stumble.” She then called out to her husband to see if he was okay. “Then I heard another noise,” she said. “It was like a groan. I jumped up and screamed and ran in. I saw David lying face down.” Berman explained that her husband was “gurgling.”
She called 999 for help before reaching out to relatives who could stay at her home with her while she waited. After learning that her husband was dead, she said she “collapsed inwardly” and was “numb.” Because police believed the death to be an accident, her husband’s body was left in the home for the undertaker, which took “ages,” the Evening News reported.
“I lay down next to David,” she told the court through tears. “I kissed him and I stroked his arm,” she said. “I did it quite a few times.”
She then allegedly wrote “bye bye” on the March 13 date on her calendar along with hearts and kisses. “I put it on at the end of the day when everybody had gone and I was ready to go up to bed.”
Daryl Berman maintained on the stand that she didn’t kill her husband. However, senior pathologist Dr. Philip Lumb raised concerns after performing an autopsy on David Berman. He claimed that the fatal stab wound to the man’s chest under his right armpit, along with a “defensive” wound on his finger, make an accidental death “inconceivable.”
“I think in broad terms, looking at the general population, accidental stab wounds with knives are exceedingly rare,” Lumb said on the stand, the Evening News reported. “I personally have not come across one.” He did add that it’s “not impossible” the stabbing could have been accidental.
The three pathologists involved in the case said “severe force” was used to create the fatal wound.
Prosecutors and the defense made their closing arguments on December 16, but a verdict has not yet been handed down.
