Stabbing intended to stop attack on woman, not kill her assailant, accused in murder trial testifies

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This article was published 17/02/2023 (1010 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man on trial for murder admits stabbing stranger Adam Laforrest to death on a North End street, but was only trying to save a woman from dying at the victim’s hands, jurors were told Thursday.

Tre Daniel Pelletier-Monkman, 26, is charged with second-degree murder in Laforrest’s June 16, 2021, killing.

“In some murder trials, the question being asked is: Who did it?” defence lawyer Emilie Cook told jurors prior to Pelletier-Monkman taking the witness stand Thursday morning. “This is not one of those cases.”

Cook argued the evidence will show Pelletier-Monkman stabbed Laforrest, 33, in defence of a woman he had attacked without warning as she sat on a Dufferin Avenue sidewalk.

”He had no time to think things out…. Immediate action was needed,” Cook said. “He reacted to an emergency and tried to do the right thing. And if you were in that position, you may have done the same thing.”

Carla Duck, 40, testified Wednesday she was sitting on the sidewalk on Dufferin Avenue near Main Street, sharing a beer with a friend around noon when she saw a man in the middle of the road yelling and stopping traffic.

Duck said she and her friend had been laughing and the man, believing they had been laughing at him, walked toward them and threw a partial can of Snapple at her face. The man threw the can at her face a second time at close range before “drop-kicking” her in the chest and punching her repeatedly in the head and upper body.

“I thought I was going to die,” she said. “He was really trying to hurt me.”

Duck said she was covering her face with her hands to block the man’s blows when he suddenly stopped, walked several feet away and sat on the sidewalk.

“I was so angry I kicked at him with my left foot on his cheek,” Duck said. “That’s when I noticed that there was blood starting to come out of his chest.”

Pelletier-Monkman testified he was with his brother in a van being driven by their grandmother on their way to a pawn shop when he saw Laforrest walking in the middle of Dufferin Avenue. Pelletier-Monkman said he rolled down his window and told Laforrest to get off the road.

“He didn’t respond, he just turned around and walked toward the sidewalk,” Pelletier-Monkman said.

Pelletier-Monkman said he saw Laforrest throw a can of Snapple two times at Duck’s face before “viciously” attacking her.

“He started fighting like crazy, going all out,” as several witnesses watched and did nothing, Pelletier-Monkman said.

“(Duck) was pretty much overpowered… I went running toward (Laforrest) to try and stop him,” he said. “I already had the knife in my hand and that’s when I started using it on him.”

Pelletier-Monkman said he wasn’t trying to kill or seriously injure Laforrest, only stop the attack.

Pelletier-Monkman said he stabbed Laforrest four or five times, but he continued to attack Duck and showed no sign of being injured, prompting Pelletier-Monkman to return to his vehicle.

“I felt overpowered and felt like he didn’t feel anything, so like there was no point, because even if I continued, that’s like trying to kill someone,” he said.

Pelletier-Monkman said he didn’t learn Laforrest had died until reading about it the following day on social media.

Closing arguments in the case will be heard next week.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca