Kelvin stabbing victim died in his friend’s arms court told

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This article was published 30/10/2017 (3217 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After he was stabbed at Kelvin High School, Brett Bourne took his last breath in his friend’s arms, court heard Monday.

Alastair Guyan, 22, testified Monday during the second-degree murder trial of a 19-year-old man that Bourne was “a little brother to me,” and he’d tried to discourage him from starting a fight – only to find himself propping a sweater under his dying friend’s head as emergency officials arrived on the Winnipeg school property during the lunch hour on June 2, 2015.

Guyan said he didn’t see the alleged stabbing. He said he ran after Bourne, who was chasing another teen into the school, looking to start a fight.

By the time he reached the school entrance facing Stafford Street, Bourne had already been hurt, but Guyan said he didn’t realize at the time his friend had been stabbed.

“As I flung open the door, that’s when they threw him out to me,” he said, saying Bourne was shoved out of the school before he stumbled with a “blank look” on his face and collapsed.

The accused, who was 17 at the time, can’t be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. He has pleaded not guilty and a jury is tasked with hearing the evidence and deciding his fate.

Crown prosecutors Krista Berkis and Erika Dolcetti have argued the accused got a knife out of his friend’s car when he heard Bourne trying to goad another student into a fight. When Bourne ran onto school property and chased the teen – who Bourne believed was dating his ex-girlfriend – the accused allegedly stabbed him in the torso.

The accused later showed police a cut on his arm he claimed was inflicted by Bourne. The Crown’s theory is he cut himself with a utility knife after he fled the scene and changed out of his bloody clothes.

The accused is presumed innocent.

Guyan testified he was staying with Bourne and his mother at the time, and he and Bourne had planned to ride their bikes to the Cabela’s outfitters store on the south side of the city to shop for hunting bows.

“I know for a fact he didn’t” take a weapon when he left the house that day, Guyan said.

He acknowledged during cross-examination questioning from Brodsky he and Bourne had some gang ties “a long time ago,” but said by the time of the stabbing they had left that lifestyle behind.

“We were just trying to straighten our lives, you know. Be like normal citizens – work, pay bills,” he said.

They didn’t plan to stop by Kelvin – Bourne had been expelled from the school and wasn’t allowed on the property – but it was along their route, Guyan said. Bourne spotted a boy he believed was dating his ex-girlfriend and tried to get him to fight, court heard. The teen didn’t want to fight, and Bourne spent 10 to 15 minutes taunting him from across the street before he ran onto school property and chased him inside the building.

Another friend of Bourne’s, who was 17 at the time of the fatal incident and can’t be identified, testified Bourne offered to pay him to forcibly bring the other teen across the street from the school so Bourne could fight him.

He said Bourne offered to pay him $60 and later upped the offer to $100. The now-19-year-old said he laughed, knowing Bourne didn’t have that kind of money. “It was stupid and just ridiculous, which is why I didn’t take it seriously,” he said.

He and Guyan both testified they didn’t see anyone with any weapons that day, and neither of them saw who stabbed Bourne.

Guyan testified after Bourne collapsed, he tried to pick him up, before he noticed the stab wound.

A passerby who said he was a doctor started giving Bourne CPR but, Guyan said, “I knew it wasn’t” working.

When police arrived, they sat Guyan in the back of a cruiser for questioning. While he was in the car, Guyan testified, he overheard the accused tell friends he’d gone home, changed his clothes and cut his own arm but told police Bourne did it.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay