George Floyd's girlfriend broke down on the witness stand as she told how they first met at a Salvation Army shelter and of their struggles with opioid addiction.
Courteney Ross, 45, gave emotional testimony in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, 45, in Minneapolis on Thursday.
Chauvin is accused of killing Mr Floyd by kneeling on his neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds, as he lay face-down in handcuffs in May 2020.
Mr Floyd’s death, along with the harrowing bystander video of him gasping for breath as onlookers yelled at Chauvin to get off him, triggered sometimes violent protests around the world and a reckoning over racism and police brutality across the US.
Ms Ross said she had gone to the shelter because her sons' father was staying there when she met Mr Floyd in 2017.
She said she became upset because the father was not coming to the lobby to discuss their son's birthday. Mr Floyd, who was working as a security guard at the centre, came over to check on her.
"Floyd has this great Southern voice, raspy. He was like, 'Sis, you OK, sis?"' Ms Ross recalled.
"I was tired. We've been through so much, my sons and I, and (for) this kind person just to come up and say, 'Can I pray with you?' ... it was so sweet. At the time, I had lost a lot of faith in God."
They had their first kiss in the lobby that night and, but for the occasional break after an argument, were together until his death, she said.
They took walks in the parks and around the lakes of Minneapolis, which was still new to the Texas-raised Floyd, and ate out a lot.
“He was a big man,” she said, describing his daily weightlifting, “and it look a lot of energy to keep him going.”
She said he adored his mother, who died in 2018, and his two young daughters.
Ms Ross also explained that both she and Floyd struggled to overcome opioid addiction.
She said that Mr Floyd had suffered an overdose in March 2020, two months before his death.
At times they took prescribed painkillers. At other times they illegally obtained opioids. Sometimes they shook the habit, sometimes they relapsed.
"Addiction, in my opinion, is a lifelong struggle," she said. "It's not something that comes and goes, it's something I'll deal with forever."
The defence has argued that Chauvin did what he was trained to do and that Mr Floyd's death was not caused by the officer's knee, as prosecutors contend, but by Mr Floyd's illegal drug use, heart disease, high blood pressure and the adrenaline flowing through his body.
Ms Ross’s testimony came a day after prosecutors played extensive video footage: security camera footage of people joking around inside a convenience store, and bystander and police bodycam video of officers pulling Mr Floyd from his SUV at gunpoint and struggling to put him in a squad car before they put him on the ground.
It also showed Mr Floyd being loaded into an ambulance.
Chauvin is charged with both murder and manslaughter.
The most serious charge against the now-fired officer carries up to 40 years in prison.
