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KAMLOOPS — 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 shoeless 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.
“She just slipped and started rolling down, and that moment was kind of for me panic,” he told the court.
He told the court that he knew no one would believe what happened and began throwing other things out of the vehicle, including the fishing knife that she had pulled away from her stomach.
“I just threw everything out, because, like, I started thinking, OK, there’s no one (who) will believe what’s happened. I was really panicked,” he said.
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.
Vitali Stefanski told the court that he was at a storage facility near his ex-wife’s home preparing to move to Salmon Arm, B.C., after being unable to find a place to live in Lumby.
In April 2024, he didn’t have a job or a place to live and his two children were not staying with him, he said.
Video played to the jury shows the former couple getting into a black car from the passenger’s side before leaving the property. Stefanski confirmed it was he and his ex-wife getting into the vehicle.
Vitali Stefanski told the court that when his ex-wife approached him at the storage facility she had a bloody nose and it was “clear” she needed to see the RCMP.
He said she was walking slowly but he didn’t see any injuries on her.
Under cross-examination, Crown lawyer Laura Drake suggested Vitali Stefanski pushed his ex-wife in the car, but he denied that.
Drake questioned him about a message he sent to his daughter prior to his ex-wife’s death.
In the voice memo, Vitali Stefanski tells his daughter that she and her younger brother are going to be alone and that their mother “destroyed our lives,” the court heard.
He told the siblings to “stay together” and stay away from Tatjana Stefanski’s parents.
The message did not mention moving to Salmon Arm.
“I’m going to suggest this to you, this is you saying goodbye forever to your daughter, that’s what this message is,” Drake said.
Vitali Stefanski denied that’s what the message meant.
The cross-examination will continue on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2026.
The Canadian Press
