Hours before Lloyd Edgi’s lifeless body was found in the side yard of a Fort Good Hope residence on a cold fall morning two years ago, simmering tensions and accusations of infidelity boiled over at a party hosted by Colten McNeely, the man at the centre of a second-degree murder trial, a Yellowknife court heard Tuesday.
Fighting back tears, Jeanette Kakfwi, Edgi’s common-law partner of eight years, testified she was in the midst of a fight with the father of her two young children when she attended a party thrown by McNeely, who she’s known for two decades, in the early morning hours of Sept. 3, 2017.
The court heard Kakfwi was involved in an extramarital relationship with McNeely in the summer of 2016.
Edgi, 28, knew about the affair.
Kakfwi and Edgi exchanged heated text messages — read aloud in court — leading up to the party. The back-and-forth began on the morning of Sept. 2, 2017, when Edgi, at home with their children, asked his partner to come home after questioning her about her whereabouts. She told him she had been drinking with friends and that there was nothing to worry about.
The conversation quickly turned into an argument between the two.
Edgi accused her of cheating. Kakfwi threatened to end the relationship over Edgi’s drinking.
After attending McNeely’s party — hosted at a place known in the community as “Colten’s Shack” — Kakfwi said she bought two mickeys of alcohol from the accused 26-year-old.
She said she walked to a nearby house with McNeely to get a drink of water. Kakfwi said she was about to head back to the shack when she heard Edgi’s angered voice from outside.
“Where the (expletive) is Colten?,” she recalled hearing Edgi yell.
Scared, Kakfwi, said she grabbed her shoes and exited the front door of the house, leaving the party. She told the court she and McNeely agreed to meet up later, but that the plan didn’t pan out.
Kakfwi, teary-eyed, hugged members of Edgi’s family — sitting front row in the courtroom — following her testimony.
‘He freaked out’
Edgi’s cousin, Janelle Pierrot, testified Tuesday.
Pierrot said she was driving around and drinking with Edgi and a group of friends in the hours leading up to his death.
Edgi, who was looking for Kakfwi, was in good spirits, Pierrot said.
“He was happy … just like Lloyd,” remembered Pierrot.
She said that changed suddenly when the group ended up at McNeely’s shack.
Edgi was told by party goers that Kakfwi had left with McNeely.
“He got really mad. He started freaking out,” Pierrot testified. She recalled trying to calm Edgi after he began pushing people at the party.
Pierrot said she then went back to her vehicle with friends, parting ways with Edgi, who stayed by the shack with two other women.
“That was the last time I saw him,” said Pierrot.
Corra Rabesca was one of the two party goers that stayed with Edgi. She testified Friday.
Rabesca said she and her friend followed Edgi, who was looking to Kakfwi, to McNeely’s nearby house. McNeely came out and told Edgi that Kakfwi had already left.
That’s when Edgi began pushing and hitting McNeely, causing him to bleed, said Rabesca.
Rabesca said she and her friend broke up the fight before Edgi left the area. The two women, with McNeely following behind them, walked back to the shack, she said. When she looked around, McNeely was gone.
Minutes later, Rabesca heard a “cry for help.” The two women ran to the source of the yell, where they found Edgi laying on the ground with a stab wound to the chest.
““He told me he couldn’t breathe,” remembered the witness as she broke down in tears.
“I told him ‘just wait, just wait. We’re getting help.’”
By the time RCMP officers arrived at the scene around 4 a.m., it was too late.
Edgi was pronounced dead 15 minutes later.
A knife, buried blade-first in the ground, was recovered about 10 feet away, Const. Brandon Barton and Const. Christopher Prospero — the first to arrive at the scene — testified at the beginning of the trial.
Prosecutors intend to prove Edgi died from a stab wound to the heart inflicted by McNeely following a violent altercation between the two.