Witness recounts visit from cousin

TRIAL IN MANSLAUGHTER CASE CONTINUES IN LETHBRIDGE

Gloria Eagle Child isn’t a forensic expert, but she knows blood when she sees it.

And that’s what she saw when her cousin, Jillian Wendy Across The Mountain, arrived at her home on the afternoon of Feb. 7, 2016, the day Frances Candice Little Light was stabbed to death.

“It looks like blood,” Eagle Child said Wednesday in Lethbridge Court of Queen’s Bench, where she testified in Across The Mountain’s manslaughter trial.

The 63-year-old Crown witness told court Across The Mountain arrived at her westside home about 2:30 p.m., smelling of alcohol and needing a shower. She said she noticed how dirty her clothes were and saw blood on her pants.

“Down on the bottom, by the boots,” she explained.

Only moments before her testimony, Kenneth Hunter, forensic specialist with the RCMP, testified he examined a knife and a pair of boots, and found blood on them that matched a blood sample taken from Little Light during the police investigation into her death. Police found the knife behind a heat radiator in the entrance to the apartment building.

Little Light’s body was discovered in her westside apartment, where she had been stabbed several times and where police had responded to a disturbance complaint earlier in the day. When police arrived early in the morning, Across The Mountain, who once had a relationship with Little Light, let them in. Little Light was drunk and aggressive toward police, but they left the apartment shortly afterward, assured that Across The Mountain would take care of her friend.

When police received another 911 call from the apartment later that afternoon, they found Little Light slouched over on the floor in a pool of blood, but Across The Mountain was gone.

Eagle Child testified that after Across The Mountain arrived at her home, the accused said she wanted to sleep and asked Eagle Child to wash her clothes. Three days later, after learning police were looking for her, Across The Mountain went to the police station, but instead of the boots she had on when she arrived at her cousin’s home, she wore a pair of sneakers that belonged to Eagle Child’s deceased daughter.

At times during her testimony, particularly during cross-examination by defence, Eagle Child seemed unsure whose idea it was to wash the clothes and wear the sneakers. But at the end of her testimony she insisted Across The Mountain had suggested both. “I’m telling the truth, so help me God.” In her recorded statement to police, which was heard in court Tuesday, Across The Mountain said she only remembers leaving Little Light’s apartment early in the morning, walking to a nearby Mac’s store, then walking to Eagle Child’s home. When she was told police had been to the apartment the same morning and that she had phoned her sister from that apartment in the afternoon before going to Eagle Child’s home, she said she couldn’t remember.

Eagle Child also testified under crossexamination that police asked her to get a confession from Across The Mountain. She said she met with the accused at the police station, and told her she had to stop doing bad things or “the devil is going to take you and you’re going to burn in hell.”

The trial continues today when the Crown is expected to call one or two more witnesses before concluding its case.

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