Stabbing victim felt trapped, court told

The brother of a woman stabbed to death in her Okotoks apartment nearly two years ago tearfully told a jury Monday that she had told him in text messages she felt trapped by her boyfriend and wanted to return to the Philippines.

Ronaldo Enrique testified that he had extensive correspondence with his younger sister, Marita Teresa Reyes Enrique, whom he virtually raised as a child, by text messages, email and phone in the days prior to her death on April 17, 2012, and she was becoming increasingly scared of her boyfriend Carlos Pelaez.

Palaez is on trial for first-degree murder.

Her brother said she graduated in hotel and restaurant management in Manila and had only come to Canada in late March that year — with the assistance of Pelaez — to work at a fast-food restaurant in Okotoks. But, he said, she never actually started work before her death.

“The first week and second week, she was really happy in Canada,” Ronaldo Enrique, 47, who was also raised in Manila but has lived in Los Angeles since 1996, told Crown prosecutor Ron Simenik. “She said Canada is beautiful, but it’s cold.

“In the third week, she said she was having a very difficult time. She felt like she was in prison … It was Carlos. She could not leave (home) by herself. She said she was having a really difficult time. She could not stand it anymore … She was really afraid of Carlos, fearful of what he might do to her.”

Teresa Enrique, 27, was found by a neighbour on the floor of the apartment on Cimarron Crescent with several life-threatening stab wounds. She died in an ambulance before they could reach hospital.

Pelaez, 30, who was lying beside her also with injuries, made it to hospital. A large, bloody butcher knife was found nearby.

Ronaldo Enrique, who drives a delivery truck to the airport for a living, said he came to Okotoks shortly after his sister’s death and gave Mounties his cellphone so they could retrieve all the correspondence he had with her in the preceding days.

Under cross-examination, Ronaldo Enrique agreed with defence lawyer David Chow that he had asked his sister if Pelaez was hurting her and she said “no.”

“Yes, I believe he did not hurt her physically,” He said, alluding to the pre-homicide correspondence. “Once, he pushed or slapped her on the shoulder.”

He also agreed Teresa never said Pelaez ever yelled at her.

The brother said he never actually saw his sister and Pelaez together, but that she advised him she was having a difficult time and could not go anywhere unless he was with her.

Outside court, following his testimony, Ronaldo Enrique said he never met the accused, but did speak to him once or twice on the phone.

Earlier, Simenik told the jury in his opening that he expects the evidence in the scheduled three-week trial to prove Pelaez committed a planned murder, but the only missing piece of the puzzle regarding the slaying will be a motive.

The trial before Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Rosemary Nation and jury of six men and six women continues Tuesday.