Witness tells court he saw Harkes pull knife at house party

Accused killer is expected to take stand next week

Accused killer Mitchell Harkes is expected to take the witness stand next week in his defence of stabbing two men, one fatally and one that required surgery to save his life, at a Brentwood house party on Jan. 12, 2013.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Rosemary Nation sent the jury home on Friday after hearing from the final Crown witness and prosecutors Carla MacPhail and James Thomas closed their case.

Defence lawyer Balfour Der will make his election on Monday whether to call any evidence and it is expected he will put his client on the stand first.

Harkes faced a second-degree murder charge for stabbing Brett Wiese, 20, six times and attempted murder of Colton Lewis, who was also stabbed a half-dozen times. He also is charged with assaulting two other men and break and enter of the home where the back-toschool university party in Calgary’s northwest was held.

Witnesses said Harkes, another male and two or three females — some of whom had been evicted earlier that night — returned to exact revenge on the person who kicked them out.

Brett Zielke testified on Friday that he was in a basement bedroom when Harkes came just inside the door, angrily looking for the person “who hit the girl.” At that point, he said, he didn’t see a weapon in the accused’s hand.

He said he and Lewis tried to get Harkes to leave the home. As they went up the stairs, they saw Wiese on the main floor pinning the other male intruder against the wall.

All of a sudden, he said, Harkes had a knife in his hand and as Wiese was turning around, Harkes stabbed him. Then, within seconds, Lewis was also stabbed.

“As Harkes was going up the stairs, there was some pushing and shoving at the top of the stairs,” Zielke told Der in cross-examination. “Then this guy pulled a knife.

“I don’t know if the guy was trying to pull Brett Wiese off the guy. But he pulled out a knife and started stabbing Brett ( Wiese). Then Colton came upstairs and, not knowing what had happened, he got stabbed a couple of times as well.”

Zielke said Wiese was able to talk and was walking fast around the island in the kitchen while he was bleeding from his wounds. Before he was able to get to the victim to help, he said Jazlyn Radke suddenly came up, said ‘ let me get through,’ and stabbed him in the back.

He said Wiese was then screaming in pain from the wounds.

“When Ms. Radke stabbed him, he let out a loud shriek and collapsed after that,” Zielke said. “It was different than the first wounds, because he just yelled in pain.”

Harkes and the others then ran out the front door of the home.

Zielke said he then placed two towels in Wiese’s back to try stop the bleeding, then the paramedics arrived and took over.

He said the entire incident involving the stabbing occurred very quickly, perhaps 10 seconds.

Radke, then 17, was previously convicted as an adult of seconddegree murder.