Khill trial hears 911 call from girlfriend of shooter
‘It was pitch black and it looked like he was literally about to shoot me, so I shot him’: Khill
Shoot or be shot.
Those were the options Peter Khill believed he was facing after he grabbed his shotgun out of the bedroom closet at 3 a.m., loaded it with two shells from his nightstand drawer and rushed out of the house into the winter air wearing only boxers and a T-shirt.
His girlfriend, Melinda Benko, had heard a noise.
A kind of “bang bang” that woke her and immediately set her on edge, she told the jury Wednesday at Khill’s second-degree murder trial.
In the week before — it was now Feb. 4, 2016 — she had twice heard a sound like someone trying to unlock the back door keypad while she was home alone and Khill was away.
The couple lived at a house on Highway 56 near Binbrook, a location surrounded by farm fields and without sidewalks or street lamps.
Now, in the early morning hours, Benko nudged Khill and he too heard the banging.
They got up and looked out their bedroom window. They saw a light on in Khill’s pickup truck, Benko told the jury.
“He’s getting his gun,” she continued, describing what happened next. She heard a “click click” as he loaded it. He told her something like “Stay safe” and then he left.
Benko had seen the gun before and watched Khill, who had been in the army reserves, shoot targets. She had seen shotgun shells around the house
— on the kitchen counter and in a tackle box.
“As I’m looking out at the truck, I see a silhouette cast over the light,” she testified, referring to a soft light from the dashboard. “I can tell that the person is in the passenger seat.”
Khill, 26 at the time, appeared in the driveway and a light suddenly and briefly came on outside and blinded Benko. She turned away, then heard “muffled yelling” and “an extremely loud bang. A cold, loud echo and bang.”
“And then I see sparks. I never knew a gun actually sparks when it’s shot ... I was hoping Pete would shoot first if he had to.”
At that point she used her cellphone to call 911.
“Somebody’s been shot,” the jury heard a clearly upset Benko say as the 15-minute call played in the courtroom.
The drama was punctuated by Benko’s recorded sobs, her quavering voice making it difficult sometimes to understand her.
Sitting on the witness stand and listening to her own distraught voice led Benko — who last month married Khill and is six-months pregnant with his child — to weep quietly, her husband watching solemnly from across the courtroom.
“OK, so who was it that got shot?” asked the 911 call taker.
“The, the person trying to steal the truck,” Benko answered.
That person, the jury knows, was Jonathan Styres, 29, of Ohsweken.
There are a few basic facts the Crown and defence agreed on from the outset of this trial, which began Monday: that Khill fired two shots that caused the death of Styres; and that Khill is white and Styres was Indigenous.
Potential jurors were asked by both sides if they could judge the case without bias knowing that a white man was accused of killing an Indigenous man. It is unclear if any of the seven men or five women on the jury are Indigenous.
Khill came back into the house after shooting Styres. Benko handed him the phone, still connected to the 911 call taker. Khill spoke in a clear voice.
“Hi. I, I just did CPR for, for probably six or seven minutes and he’s got nothing, no pulse. “No, he has no pulse, eh? OK.” “Oh shit.”
Khill told 911 the gun is in the house now, unloaded.
“He was gasping for air, so I was trying to do CPR on him,” Khill continued.
“OK. Are you Peter?”
“He was in the truck with his hands up. And not like, not with his hands up to surrender, but his hands up pointing at me. It was pitch black and it looked Iike he was literally about to shoot me, so I shot him.”
“Yeah.”
“I, I mean I didn’t want to lose my life, so …”
“OK. Do you know if he had a gun?’
“Looking at him now, it doesn’t look like it. He’s got knives.” Styres did not have a gun. When the forensic pathologist did the autopsy on Styres, a folding knife was found in his front right jeans pocket, attached there by a clip.
Also found were dozens of “birdshot” pellets inside his body.