Suspect Gervais admitted to stabbing teen, murder trial told
Paroled killer Joch Pouk told a murder trial Thursday that he started the deadly fight that ended in the death of Calgary teen Lukas Strasser-Hird.
But Pouk said he was pulled from the fracas before a large group descended on Strasser-Hird in an alley behind a Beltline bar.
And Pouk said he didn’t see accused murderer Nathan Gervais in the group that swarmed the victim.
Gervais is charged with firstdegree murder in the Nov. 23, 2013, death of Strasser-Hird, 18, who was badly beaten behind the since-shuttered Vinyl nightclub before being stabbed.
It’s the Crown’s theory Gervais retrieved a knife from his car following an earlier altercation outside the front of the bar and later stabbed the deceased.
Pouk, who was sentenced to seven years for manslaughter in the killing, said he attacked Strasser-Hird when someone identified him as the person who earlier had sucker-punched his friend, Assmar Shlah.
“At the time I thought I was avenging my friend,” Pouk told Gervais’ Court of Queen’s Bench trial.
Pouk said the first time he met Gervais was after their arrest, while they were housed at the Calgary Remand Centre.
He said during a CCTV court appearance they were in a holding cell with several other inmates.
“We were asked, ‘did you guys do it?’ and I said ‘no,’ ” Pouk testified.
But he said Gervais nodded in the affirmative.
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Alain Hepner, the witness acknowledged it was noisy and chaotic in the holding cell and the question could have been directed at someone else.
Meanwhile, two friends of Gervais said they spoke to him at a home where a group of bar-goers gathered after the altercation that left Strasser-Hird dead.
Anthony Spadafora said he was quite intoxicated when Gervais showed up at the bar with his girlfriend.
“That’s when he had told me that he had stabbed him,” Spadafora said.
But he admitted to Hepner he couldn’t remember the accused’s exact words.
“I suggest you can’t really remember what Nathan said,” the lawyer put to the witness. “Not exactly, no.”
A second friend said he also spoke to Gervais separately at the residence after Franz Cabrera, who was earlier convicted of second-degree murder, claimed he had done the stabbing.
“Franz ... told everyone he had stabbed someone and then Nathan pulled me aside and he’s like, ‘I don’t know why Franz is saying he stabbed someone, I stabbed him,’ ” Gino Aiello said.
The trial continues Friday.