Jonathan Styres’ shooter testifies that he acted in self-defence
Accused killer Peter Khill says his military training kicked in to ‘neutralize the threat’ posed by man found in truck
PETER KHILL had military training and a gun.
He also had a phone and the ability to call 911.
Khill chose the gun option in the moments after being woken by a 3 a.m. noise and seeing a light on in his truck.
He testified he made that decision because he thought his life was in danger. The Crown attorney prosecuting him for second-degree murder flipped that logic around and said Khill was never in danger, and went looking for trouble.
Ultimately, the Crown argued, Khill actually created the trouble by blasting 29-year-old Jonathan Styres — whom he found rummaging around in his 15-year-old pickup truck for loose change — twice with a shotgun.
“This could have been some goofy teenage kid,” thundered Crown Steve O’Brien in his crossexamination of Khill, a former part-time reservist with the Canadian Armed Forces. “Not some armed Taliban insurgent. It could have been some kid from your neighbourhood . ... There was some guy stealing your truck outside and you killed him . ... Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Khill said. Tuesday — by far the most dramatic in the trial, which began last week — started with the defence making its opening statement to the jury.
“This is a case about self-defence,” lawyer Jeff Manishen said. “It wasn’t a matter of going outside to protect a truck. “He acted to protect his life.” Khill took the witness stand and said he was on heightened alert after being woken on Feb. 4, 2016, because twice in the previous week his girlfriend (now his wife) thought she heard someone trying to unlock their door while she was home alone.
He said his training in the military (which he left years earlier) kicked in as he loaded his shotgun and went out to “neutralize the threat.”
Khill had, from the beginning, admitted shooting Styres twice with his Remington 12-gauge shotgun.
His trainer in the 56 Field Regiment in Brantford testified that gun training is repeated so often that soldiers react instinctively without needing to think.
“It becomes second nature,” Walter Stroka said.
Soldiers are trained to be “proactive.”
“It’s about looking after yourself and your group first,” he said.
A jet engine mechanic with no criminal record and his first child on the way, Khill was calm and courteous on the stand. He told the jury he kept a shotgun in his bedroom closet for “self-defence.”
He said he was afraid for his life because the garage door opener was in the truck, and the house can be accessed through the garage. Also, he kept a sixinch knife in his truck — in case he ever needed to cut off a seatbelt — and feared that could be used against him.
“I felt like I was being threatened and I felt like I wasn’t in control of the situation,” he said. “I needed to gain control of the situation.”
Khill described how he stealthily went out the back door of the house. He opened the door silently, as per his military training, and walked quietly in his bare feet using the technique he learned in the reserves. He emerged into the driveway.
It was so dark outside his rural home near Binbrook that he couldn’t tell if the figure leaning into the passenger seat of his truck was a man or woman.
The darkness is critical. The Crown and defence have agreed Styres was Indigenous and Khill, 28, is white. Neither side has raised race as a factor in the homicide. However, it was an issue addressed with potential jurors during the selection process in an effort to weed out racial bias. It is unclear if any jurors are Indigenous.
Standing near the stooped stranger, Khill shouted, “Hey! Hands up!” He demonstrated his booming command for the court.
At that point, he said, the figure turned toward him, bringing his hands up, together, to “gun height.”
“If I didn’t shoot, I thought I was going to be shot. Because that’s what people do when they have a gun . ... I raised my shotgun, took it off safe, then fired one round. Racked the shotgun. Fired the second round.”
The trial has heard Styres was hit once in the chest and once in the back of his right shoulder from, at most, 12 feet away.
During this moment in the testimony, the mother of Styres’ two children bolted from the courtroom, sobbing.
The Crown picked at Khill’s story.
Neither Khill nor his girlfriend thought to call police to report that someone was in the truck? Wouldn’t that have been a “reasonable thing to do?”
Khill said yes, but grabbing his gun and heading out was also a reasonable response.
“Did you think to scare them off ?” asked O’Brien. “We’ve already heard your voice. You’re a good yeller.”
Khill said no, he fell back on his military training.
The Crown pointed to the darkness, the careful and quiet way Khill positioned himself near the stranger leaning into the truck. How he suddenly shouted his command.
The man turning with his hands rising.
“You startled him,” O’Brien says. “Just behind him, out of nowhere, a loud voice is yelling at him. And he starts.”
That’s why Styres raised his empty hands, the Crown said. Khill disagreed.
“As soon as I seen that, I knew it was a gun. I knew it was a gun.”
Except it wasn’t. Styres never had a gun.
“You didn’t wait even a halfsecond before shooting him in the chest,” the Crown said. “That’s correct.”
Khill never performed CPR on Styres as he claimed, the Crown said. There wasn’t enough blood on his hands for that. The cop who did try to save Styres’ life was covered in his blood afterward.
The blood is from patting Styres down, which Khill said he did. And when he didn’t find a gun, he began working on a story to “save face later on.”
The jury will hear the next defence witness Thursday.