SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The prosecution's key witness to the murder of Daniel Faine - his then-girlfriend - admitted she lied to police and during her testimony under oath in court Wednesday as a defence lawyer sought to raise the idea someone other than his client killed the man.
The woman Yellowknifer is not naming made the explosive admission under cross examination by a lawyer representing the woman charged with second degree murder in connection with Faine's death following a Ndilo house party on Sept. 14, 2013. The accused was 17-years old at the time and cannot be named.
When pressed by lawyer Steven Fix about whether she had been in a physical argument with Faine, the victim's former girlfriend said, "No."
Fix then read from her previous testimony at a preliminary inquiry - held to determine if there's enough evidence to take the case to trial - where the witness said her boyfriend "hit me, but never beat me up."
"Did you lie today?" Fix asked.
"Just that once," she said.
Fix later asked why her testimony about who stabbed Faine, 21, should be believed.
"Because I'm telling the truth," she said, her head bowed.
"Except for the parts where you lied," Fix said, ending his cross examination.
The exchange came on the first day of the trial in NWT Supreme Court before Justice Karan Shaner.
The case previously began as a jury trial in March but ended after one day with a mistrial declared because the key witness was hospitalized. The accused opted to be tried by judge alone this time.
Fix, during the first two days of testimony, tried to raise doubt that his client was the one who stabbed Faine, including pointing to the witness's reluctance to provide a statement to police. When asked the afternoon after the stabbing what happened to the knife, she told police to talk to the accused.
Told she was a witness and her account was important, the witness replied, "I don't want to talk about it. Can I go now?" according to portions of the statement read by Fix.
The lawyer also pointed out the witness wasn't going to tell police what happened that morning until she saw them talking to the accused.
Crown prosecutor Alex Godfrey asked Sgt. Eric Lane, lead RCMP investigator on the case, whether the investigation that included interviews with 43 people considered other suspects.
"At the end of this investigation there was nothing credible, reliable information, to say anyone else was responsible for this," Lane said.
The attempt by the defence to point to other possible culprits was something the Crown anticipated. Godfrey asked Faine's girlfriend whether she was the one who had stabbed him.
"No," she replied.
An 11-cm deep stab wound to Faine's heart killed him, according to an agreed statement of facts. Faine was at a house party in one unit of a duplex with several people that morning, including his girlfriend who Godfrey called as the first witness.
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Elusive during questioning and frequently yawning, the woman testified she and the accused were trying to get her boyfriend to leave the house just before the alleged stabbing.
She said others at the party had been locked outside. Several people were passed out in various parts of the house, including the living room where the stabbing allegedly took place.
Another witness, Crystal Goulet, now 28, testified there was a fight between several people earlier in the night, although Faine wasn't directly involved. Some people went outside and then were locked out, she said.
Outside, Goulet heard yelling from inside between Faine, his girlfriend and another female voice she couldn't identify.
Faine, his girlfriend and the accused were standing together in the living room with the two females telling Faine to leave the house. He wouldn't. The girlfriend said the accused grabbed a knife and pointed it at Faine.
"'Go, go or else I'll stab you,'" the accused said, according to the witness.
"'You're going to stab me,'" Faine said, she recalled.
That's when the accused stepped forward with the black-handled kitchen knife and stabbed him she testified, gesturing with her right arm in a stabbing motion.
Faine, she said, stepped back, pulled the knife from his chest and went to a back door to a common room between the duplex units. The accused, she said, closed and locked the door.
A knife with Faine's DNA on it was found in the kitchen sink.
Blood was smeared on the floor of the living room and was also found on the socks the accused was wearing and the cuff of her jeans.
Lane, the investigator, said police couldn't find any fingerprints for analysis on the knife.
Party-goers and friends of Faine testified he fell to the floor bleeding in the common room.
Kelsey Martin attended the party and passed out in a utility room adjoining the common room.
He said he awoke to the walls shaking and what sounded like an argument. He went into the common room to find Faine on the floor.
"'Danny Boy, Danny Boy, stay with me, wake up,'" Martin testified he heard a friend of Faine's say as the man attempted CPR.
When RCMP arrived, several intoxicated people were hauled out of the house, officers testified Wednesday and Thursday.
The accused was found in an upstairs bedroom.
"She didn't appear to be emotional or under any stress," Const. Tyler Dunphy testified.
Const. Matt James testified his shift supervisor, Cpl. Violet Pokiak, told him the information she received was that Faine's death may have been "a suicide thing," and that the accused would know more.
After taking to others, James then took the accused aside and told her she was under arrest for aggravated assault.
"Is this necessary? I'm not going to stab you," she told the officer while being handcuffed.
She was re-arrested for murder when police learned Faine was dead.
She requested to speak with her dad and later said, "Can we go so I can make a statement so I can go to work?"
Pokiak testified the accused was unemotional when she was being processed at the RCMP station.
"I was just surprised at her reaction given what had just occurred," Pokiak said, adding the accused only began crying after speaking with her father.
Fix asked if the officer was surprised because she didn't act like someone who had just stabbed another person.
"Yes," Pokiak said.
The Crown finished calling witnesses Thursday afternoon. The woman charged did not testify in her own defence.
The Crown was expected to provide a closing statement just before press time Thursday.
The judge said she will deliver a verdict today at 2 p.m.
