A man accused of murdering his ex-wife in 2024 denies he killed her but says they were in his car together when he saw her pull his knife away from her own abdomen.
Vitali Stefanski told the jury in his B.C. Supreme Court trial that Tatjana Stefanski was in his car when he noticed she was holding his knife and moving it away from her belly button.
He described in thickly accented and halting testimony how he watched her “twisting” in the reclined passenger seat of his vehicle then noticing bleeding from her leg.
The court in Kamloops, B.C., has heard that Tatjana Stefanski’s body had seven stab wounds to her chest and multiple “sharp-force injuries” to her arms and legs when it was found down a steep embankment off the side of a forestry road near Lumby, B.C.
Police officers earlier told the trial that Vitali Stefanski appeared alone and barefoot on a forestry road and told them he’d murdered his ex-wife and had tried to kill himself.
Vitali Stefanski said his ex-wife stopped responding as he was driving looking for a hospital, but at some point her body was outside of the vehicle and when he tried to pull her back, she slipped down the embankment.
He told the court that he knew no one would believe what happened and in a panic began throwing other things out of the vehicle, including the fishing knife that she had pulled away from her stomach.
The court has heard that a bent and bloodied knife was found near the body and that it had the DNA of both Tatjana and Vitali Stefanski.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2026
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