Jury hears from more partygoers during murder trial

Video of a deadly melee that ended in the fatal stabbing of a 16-yearold girl was viewed multiple times by a Regina jury this week as various teenage partygoers provided their perspectives of what happened that night.

The incident was captured in a series of videos, each showing a flurry of movement underscored by screams and shouts and ending with Erica Hill O'watch — known to many who knew her as Eliza — lying on the floor, dying of a stab wound.

The jury was previously told Hill O'watch was pronounced dead in the basement of a house on the 900 block of Cameron Street shortly after 1 a.m. on Oct. 14, 2018. The Crown told jurors evidence will show Hill O'watch died after suffering a single stab wound which cut her jugular vein and entered her lung.

The key question at trial, according to co-defence counsel Andrew Hitchcock, is who delivered that wound. According to the Crown, it was the now-17-year-old male standing trial for second-degree murder. But Hitchcock intends to argue the evidence is less than clear.

The youth cannot be named under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. As many of the witnesses are youths or were at the time of the incident, they also aren't being named.

In an effort to make sense of the chaotic scene, both Crown and defence counsel have played through the videos multiple times, often slowing them down and moving frame by frame.

One of the witnesses — just 12 at the time of the party and the youngest to testify so far — wept this week after watching a video recorded on her phone.

Now 14, the girl said she was scared to go to the party but was goaded there by a then-friend.

When a brawl broke out among partygoers — some fighting, others trying to break things up — someone used the girl's phone to record it.

She said she saw a couple of knives in the possession of partygoers, although she didn't recall seeing one on the then-15-yearold accused. While she testified she saw the accused and Erica involved in a physical altercation, she said she didn't see the stabbing.

Through tears, she said she learned Erica had been badly injured when she saw her fall.

“I seen her laying on the ground and there was blood all over the ground and on her,” she told the court.

She said she didn't know what led to the fighting.

Under cross- examination, co- defence counsel Andrew Hitchcock pointed to a male on the video — not the accused — whom he suggested was holding a knife. The witness admitted she too saw the person with the apparent knife in the video but testified she hadn't noticed him the night of the party.