‘It was an accident, but not an accident’

Accused told undercover officer she stabbed man

During a secretly recorded conversation, a teenage girl told an undercover RCMP officer that when she stabbed Patrick Dong in the leg, she didn’t know it would kill him.

The group of people she was with drove Dong outside Saskatoon to beat him up because he had been stealing from her “family,” the girl said, adding that Dong was still alive when they drove away.

“Whoever thought that you could die from being stabbed in the leg?” she said, surmising that Dong must have “bled out.”

The now 19-year-old is on trial, charged with first-degree murder, unlawful confinement and kidnapping in connection with Dong’s death on Oct. 22, 2016.

The accused cannot be identified because she was 17 years old at the time of the offence .

One of the agreed upon facts presented at trial is that the girl stabbed Dong six times in the leg and caused his death. The Crown is trying to prove it was a planned and intentional murder.

The girl was arrested eight months later and placed in a detention cell with an undercover officer on June 7, 2017. Their audio-recorded conversation was played in court on Tuesday.

In the audio, she said she was guilty but that she would fight the charge so she could be sentenced as a youth, the officer testified.

The girl was being interviewed by police in between her cellmate conversations. An interview with Cpl. Ferrah Yeager was played in court, in which the accused said she didn’t mean to kill Dong. She eventually admitted hitting Dong with a bat and stabbing him so he wouldn’t come after her.

That information was crucial because it was ‘holdback evidence’ — facts only the killer would know because they hadn’t been made public, Yeager testified. However, the girl said she didn’t know Dong died because of the stab wounds.

The undercover officer testified the girl was giggling when she returned to her cell, disclosing what she had learned.

“It’s my living nightmare. It wasn’t even supposed to go down like that. It was an accident, but not an accident,” she told her cellmate.

“I’m a normal person. It’s like one in a million f----ng chances that s — t happened.”

On the recording, she can be heard saying people get left outside the city all the time. She also talked about being in gangs and loyalty to her gang “family,” saying the person Dong stole from had asked her to help him.

“It just sucks that the fact that someone rat(s) and I’m getting first-degree,” she said.

The Crown closed its case Tuesday, after seven days of testimony. The defence will have an opportunity to present evidence today.