Saskatoon murder trial hears from woman who came upon crime scene north of city

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A woman says she was driving down Penner Road, north of Saskatoon, on her way to work around 5:50 a.m. when a woman standing in the middle of the road flagged her down and asked her to call 911.

Theresa Vitali said she could see that the woman had been stabbed on the left side of her head, behind her ear, and that a man in a ditch had been stabbed in the leg.

Over the phone, she told police where to find the people who “had done this to them,” Vitali testified on Tuesday in Saskatoon Court of King’s Bench.

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Colton Robert Lischka, 31, and Ashtin Ritzand, 30, are on trial, charged with second-degree murder, attempted murder and using violence to steal a cellphone. Ritzand is in custody, while Lischka is out on bail.

The men are accused in the stabbing death of 40-year-old James “Ed” Swift, who was left in a ditch on Range Road 3050 in the RM of Corman Park in the early morning of Aug. 29, 2022. He was declared dead at the scene.

During cross-examination, Vitali said the injured woman, identified in court as Virginia Belhumeur, stood beside her while she performed CPR on the man in the ditch.

She agreed with defence lawyer Blaine Beaven that Belhumeur said they didn’t need to do CPR because the man was already dead.

Vitali testified that she heard Belhumeur tell police that she and a friend had met people while they were out for a drink the night before and had an altercation with them, but made amends, and the group later offered them a ride.

“She was really calm. She spoke clearly,” Vitali told court.

Belhumeur is expected to testify next week. The judge-alone trial is scheduled to last three weeks.

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At the time of the arrests, police said both victims were in a white Honda Civic with three men when an altercation occurred on a rural road around 6 a.m.

The car took off and the victims were left behind.

On Tuesday, court was shown police cruiser video of the chase that led to arrests later that day.

The video shows a white Honda Civic pulling out of a Wendy’s parking lot in the city’s Willowgrove neighbourhood and speeding into the Evergreen neighbourhood. Defence lawyer Nicholas Stooshinoff provided a version of the same video that shows the speed police were going during the chase.

Warman RCMP Const. Maverick Hamon-Boulay, who was driving the lead car, agreed that his speed reached up to 165 km/hr.

“Someone didn’t want to get caught, eh?” Stooshinoff asked.

The video shows a male driver stop the car in the middle of Marlatte Street, get out and start running.

Hamon-Boulay testified that he couldn’t identify who the driver was, but said they were told that the suspects lived in a basement suite nearby.

One man surrendered, and another man was found hiding under a pile of laundry in the basement, he said. During cross-examination, he said he couldn’t definitively identify either man.

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According to prior police information, Lischka was arrested inside that home and Ritzand turned himself in the next day after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

On Monday, Cpl. Thomas Yu of the Saskatoon RCMP major crimes unit testified that he was called to the scene around 7:30 a.m. He said tire impressions, footprints, a liquor bottle, a pocket knife and zip ties were left at the scene, along with a receipt from an Evergreen neighbourhood gas station for four prepaid credit cards, purchased at 1:30 a.m.

The trial continues Wednesday.

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