Denecho King, accused of carrying out a bloody rampage that killed one man and injured another, walked into a motel the morning of the alleged attack talking about a fight he had been in with “two guys," a witness testified Monday.
image courtesy of the Department of Justice.
The witness, an employee at the Northern Lites motel in downtown Yellowknife, told the court he was working the night shift on Dec.14, 2014, when King – who he knew – entered the lobby of the 50 Street building.
King, 25, is charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with a violent attack alleged to have taken place on the same day, claiming the life of John Wifladt and seriously injuring Colin Digness.
Members of Wifladt's family have sat together in court for each day of the often-emotional trial.
The employee testified King, wearing a blue Adidas jacket with stripes along the arms, spoke about getting into a fight – a topic of conversation that prompted the clerk to “tune out” most of what the defendant was saying.
The clerk's testimony was accompanied by video footage played in NWT Supreme Court by Crown prosecutors Alex Godfrey and Jill Andrews. Footage from a security camera affixed to the Northern News Services building showed an individual walking toward the motel at 5:07 a.m.
Closed circuit camera recordings, capturing a view of the Northern Lites motel lobby from behind the front desk, showed the witness sitting behind a monitor before another man opened the front door and entered the lobby at 5:07 a.m., moments after the first clip was recorded.
In syncing the two videos, the Crown effectively asked the court to accept the individual seen in both clips was King.
The man who entered the motel, approached the front desk, walking around to the side of the clerk, who sat watching a documentary. King rubbed his hands together for warmth, casually reaching over the witness to grab a handful of trail mix.
Moments later, the man positioned his hands – one over the other – as if gripping a baseball bat, before making what Justice Andrew Mahar described as “cross-body motions from above.”
The witness, asked by Godfrey to describe the gestures made by King that December morning, mimicked what he called “forward, overhand” motions, testifying it looked like he was “acting something out.”
The motel employee wasn't specifically asked what King had said while making the gestures.
In cross-examining Monday's lone witness, King's lawyer Jay Bran cited a statement the man made to police in the days that followed his motel meeting with the accused and bloody discovery at Sunridge Place apartments.
Presented with a transcript of his conversation with RCMP, in which the witness said King had told him he had “scrapped” “some guy” – not “two guys” as the witness had testified – the clerk said he thought the accused had mentioned a pair of men but that he could've been mistaken.
The motel clerk told Bran he didn't know when the fight described by King had occurred and that it's possible the confrontation happened well before Dec.14, 2014.
After making the gestures, the employee testified King left the lobby, walking up to the motel's second floor where he entered a room. Numerous other video clips played by the Crown show a man fitting King's description leaving the same room with two other individuals.
King later returned to the lobby to ask for a cigarette – but this time, the witness testified, he was wearing a T-shirt, revealing what the clerk described as electrical tape wrapped around the his arm, just above his elbow.
The witness didn't observe any blood or injuries on King.
The evidence presented Monday is the latest in the Crown's efforts to sew together video footage with witness testimony to map the movements of King on Dec. 13 and Dec. 14, 2018 – and to prove his guilty through circumstantial evidence.