Accused admits stabbing on Morley reserve

He used a kitchen butter knife after kicking victim

Patrick Striker Holloway finally admitted near the end of a four-hour police interview that he stabbed Gino Powderface in the chest while the victim was on the floor of his home on the Morley reserve west of Calgary on New Year’s last year.

Holloway, 23, now on trial for second-degree murder, told RCMP Const. Mike Ritchie he got a butter knife from the kitchen and stabbed Powderface after he and two other people repeatedly punched and kicked the victim. When asked by Ritchie where he stabbed the victim, Holloway said he wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know, just around his body,” he said in the videotaped interview played to a jury on Thursday at Court of Queen’s Bench. “I think it was around here somewhere.”

Holloway said he threw the knife away in a ditch after they left the home of Bud Crawler, where the 35-year-old victim resided.

When asked by Ritchie why he didn’t reveal who stabbed Powderface earlier, he said, “’Cause I was scared.”

He later said he was not told by Andrew Pooreagle, whom he said was one of the other assailants, to do it. He also said he did not know why he stabbed Powderface, as he did not know him and certainly had nothing against him.

Holloway said he and the others who took part in what Crown prosecutor Britta Kristensen called a “savage beating,” threw their clothes in the garbage later on New Year’s Day 2011.

The accused said he saw Pooreagle with a baseball bat earlier on New Year’s Eve, but did not see a bat at the scene of the attack and never saw anyone use a bat on the victim. He said nobody took weapons with them into the home.

Holloway said Pooreagle was the

I hit him a couple of times . . . with my hand . . . knuckles PATRICK HOLLOWAY

person who had prior problems with Powderface and was the one who wanted to go over to the Crawler home that night.

“Well, it was Andrew’s idea to go there . . . well, like you said, he had a beef with him and I didn’t even know him,” said the accused.

When the officer asked holloway why he went along, he just said he was drunk and wasn’t thinking right. “And I didn’t think anything like this was gonna happen.”

“He said he’s had some problems like before and like it was still going on,” Holloway continued. “I’m not too sure, I think they got in a fight before. I’m not too sure, he didn’t tell me, I mean we just went there and he ended up going inside.”

Later, he said he could remember Pooreagle saying something about being stabbed before by Powderface.

Holloway said Pooreagle went into the home first, then he followed to where the victim was sleeping or watching television on the couch. Pooreagle and Powderface started fighting in the living room. The victim tried to fight back, but he couldn’t because it looked like he was drunk, the accused said.

“I tried to stop them and I couldn’t and I ended up getting hit. And you know, I was drunk and I ended up fighting with him too . . . I ended up punching Gino about four or five times,” Holloway told the officer, noting he was also struck on the head. “I hit him a couple of times . . . with my hand . . . knuckles, I think it was on the side of the head about three times.”

Holloway also said he kicked the victim on the body four or five times while he was on the ground. He said Pooreagle was also kicking the victim in the face and he was not fighting back at that point.

He said Almeria Holloway kicked the victim in the body about three times while he was down on the floor.

Pooreagle, 25, and Almeria Holloway, 38, are separately charged and will be tried for second-degree murder next fall. The accused said his girlfriend, Diondra Hunter, who was in the vehicle outside, did not come in until after the fight was over and played no part in it.

On Wednesday, the jury was shown autopsy photos of the fatal stab wound, as well as numerous cuts and bruises the victim sustained on his face and body.

Dr. Graeme Dowling, assistant chief medical examiner for Alberta, told Crown prosecutor Britta Kristensen that he reviewed photos showing the stab wound passed through the breast bone, then completely through the heart.

Dowling also said Powderface had a blood-alcohol level of .24, three times the legal driving limit, and had a liver consistent with excessive alcohol consumption.

The victim’s face was severely swollen from the attack.

The trial continues before Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Suzanne Bensler and the jury of six men and six women.