Crown prosecutors typically make sure to ask binary questions during cross examination.
Accordingly, as Crown lawyer Laura Drake posed questions to accused North Okanagan murderer Vitali Stefanski Wednesday morning, she made an apparent effort to phrase the questions in a way that would elicit a yes or no answer.
On multiple occasions during Vitali’s second-degree murder trial in B.C. Supreme Court trial in Kamloops June 10, Vitali attempted to sidestep these binary questions.
“Yes and no,” he said when asked if he had placed his valid German passport in the suitcase he gave to his son not long before he pushed Tatjana into his Audi car and drove away with her the morning of April 13, 2024, the day of her death, and marking the final moment she was seen alive.
“Yes and no” was his answer when asked if he was talking about the day of Tatjana’s death when the next day, he told police she was harassing him.
In fact, “yes and no” was his response on three separate occasions regarding his statement to police that Tatjana was harassing her as Drake attempted to nail down when exactly this alleged harassment happened. On Tuesday, Vitali had testified that while police were asking him how he and Tatjana got into his car that morning, his answer was in reference to her harassment of him “maybe the week before.”
Vitali was unable to explain clearly why he had answered the officer’s question so obliquely, but said it was all a “complete accident.”
The cross-examination of Vitali plodded along Wednesday, this time with assistance from an interpreter, and the murky picture of Tatjana’s final moments as told by her accused killer has become even murkier as the cross-examination has gone on, though Vitali maintains he did nothing to harm Tatjana.
Vitali’s account of what happened is that he “slightly” pushed Tatjana into his Audi at the top of her driveway and then climbed over her legs through the passenger door he’d pushed her through. He could not recall or state clearly why he didn’t walk around to the driver’s door and enter that way, saying only that he was determined to take Tatjana to the RCMP and show them how she appeared that morning, adding she had a bloody nose and tears in her eyes from allergies.
Drake suggested that the reason Vitali had climbed in through the passenger door was that he was worried Tatjana would get back out of the car if he went around to the driver’s door. Vitali denied this.
Vitali also claims Tatjana stabbed herself in the abdomen with his knife while they were both seated in the parked car. He claimed Wednesday that a second knife injury she suffered by her own hand was accidental. When challenged on this, he said he was only guessing that it was an accident.
Drake asked Vitali why his fishing knife was in the car for Tatjana to have grabbed in the first place, when all of his other fishing gear had been packed away neatly in the storage locker near Tatjana’s home, and near where they were parked.
Vitali submitted that he didn’t know the knife had been in the car, and that it had blended in with the colour of the car’s interior.
Drake said there was no way the knife had been “camouflaged” on the back seat of his car and he just didn’t notice it.
“I’m going to suggest to you, sir, you went and got that knife out of the storage locker on April 13, 2024,” Drake countered. Vitali said he had not.
“You kept the knife on purpose,” the Crown lawyer returned.
“No,” said Vitali, “If I would see it, I would just take it outside (of the car).”
Vitali claimed he saw the knife for the first time after Tatjana had stabbed herself with it. He said he didn’t see her reach to the back seat to grab it, even though he said he was looking through the passenger side window in preparation to make a right-hand turn toward Lumby. He said the passenger’s seat was reclined with Tatjana in it, and so he didn’t see her reach for the knife.
The court previously heard that Tatjana suffered 21 sharp-force wounds, including seven stab wounds to her chest and ribs that proved fatal. Drake said Vitali had only accounted for two wounds in his story, which according to yesterday’s testimony, ends with an unresponsive Tatjana sliding down an embankment off Mabel Lake Road on her own accord, after he had pulled her out of his car.
Vitali had testified that he saw Tatjana bleeding profusely while they were in the car, and then he started driving to Lumby looking for a hospital or clinic, which do not exist in the small village.
Drake asked Vitali why he didn’t call 911 while Tatjana was bleeding and they were searching for a hospital, once they had arrived in Lumby.
Vitali said he’d never seen any injuries like this in his life and had never called 911 before. He said in that moment, he was not even sure what number to dial.
“Are you telling the jury that you didn’t know what 911 was?” Drake asked, pointing out that Vitali had lived in Canada for 11 years at this point.
His response was he’d heard of it but had never dialed it before.
Cross-examination of Vitali Stefanski is expected to continue Wednesday afternoon.