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Evidence at the Misha Pavelick murder trial this week brought more light to bear on what might have happened after the fights and killing.
On Wednesday, the eighth day in court, proceedings went on for the man charged with killing Misha. He was under 18 at the time, so he cannot be publicly named. Witnesses who were underage at the time are also not being named.
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In the afternoon, D.M. took the stand. She was with the same large group the accused was in that went down to the party at Kinookimaw campground on the May long weekend in 2006.
What she saw and remembered of the party and the fights was similar to what other witnesses told court over the previous week and a half. She didn’t see any weapons and didn’t see much of the events involving Misha.
But D.M. was also with the group when they left the campground and came back together at the parking lots near the pier at Regina Beach.
She said while they were there socializing, a group of boys went off to the pier and told others to stay back because they were talking – she said that group included the accused, Scott Nelson, Dustin Scudder and another boy.
D.M. said when the boys got to the water, they were throwing stuff.
“You could see them kind of skipping rocks and throwing stuff amongst themselves,” she told court.
In 2021, the RCMP’s underwater recovery team conducted a search of the area around the pier at Regina Beach in connection with the Pavelick case. RCMP wouldn’t say at the time what specific evidence they were looking for.
Some of the evidence D.M. gave also disagreed with what previous witnesses had said about the accused that night. Others have said he was upset and acting erratically that night, several people describing him running away from a vehicle on the highway on the way back to Regina.
Besides him getting mad when another person was asking questions once they got back to Regina and trying to find out what happened, D.M. said she remembered the accused acting normally that night.
Another knife
In the morning on Wednesday, Kyle Edwards sat in the witness box to give his recollections of what happened that night. He’s another person witnesses have identified as having had a knife that night.
Edwards was friends with the accused and a number of the other boys that were in the group that night; he also knew Misha, having gone to the same high school in grade nine.
On the stand, he talked about having some unease at the time about being at the party, saying he found out on the way that it was a Miller grad party and after they were there, he was told by another guy at the party that they should probably leave.
When the fighting broke out at the party, Edwards told court he didn’t get involved, that it had happened so fast and he’d just stood there. Past witnesses had put Edwards in the midst of the fighting.
Edwards admitted to having a knife on him at the time. He said it was a Swiss Army knife that he would carry around with him.
Last week, when Dustin Scudder was on the stand, he said he also had a knife – a folding knife with an eagle on the handle.
Edwards said Scudder gave his knife to the accused at one point in the night, but said he didn’t hear anything at the time about why. Defence lawyer Andrew Hitchcock challenged him on whether he saw that happen or just heard about it. He brought up a video of one of Edwards’ conversations with RCMP in the days after Misha’s death.
In the video, 18-year-old Edwards told RMCP that Scudder told him that he gave his knife to the accused, and then didn’t know where it was anymore. After watching the video, Edwards agreed with Hitchcock that the conversations he had could have influenced his memory.
Hitchcock also questioned Edwards on his memories of his own knife. At first, he’d said he didn’t take the knife out at all, but was later reminded by Hitchcock that he did take it out of his pocket while looking for a lighter.
In his questions, Hitchcock said the RCMP was very interested in Edwards’ knife, and had at first said it was at his house. But a couple of days later, Edwards told police he’d misplaced the knife.
Video of a second conversation Edwards had with RCMP in May 2006 was shown in court. In it, an emotional-sounding Edwards talked about how he might have given his knife to Scott Nelson, but didn’t know for sure.
Edwards agreed that he was under a lot of pressure from police in the second conversation, and that he was concerned his prints were on his knife and had told police that he’d checked the knife for blood. On Wednesday, Edwards responded to Hitchcock’s questions, saying, of course he was concerned, because “someone got stabbed and I had a pocket knife.”
