B.C. murder suspect says he attempted suicide after victim ‘slipped’ down embankment

The man accused of murdering Tatjana Stefanski in British Columbia more than two years ago testified Wednesday that he tried to kill himself twice in the hours after her death, by drowning in a lake and by stabbing himself with a kitchen knife found at an empty cabin.

But Vitali Stefanski denied harming his ex-wife or deliberately dumping her remains, saying instead that she stabbed herself in his car and her body later “slipped” from his grasp, the day before it was found off a forestry road outside Lumby in B.C.’s southern Interior, with seven stab wounds to the chest and other injuries.

Stefanski, who has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder at his B.C. Supreme Court jury trial in Kamloops, testified that he “did everything” he could to get her medical help after driving away with her from her home on April 13, 2024.

He described climbing over her through the passenger side of his car, discovering she had been stabbed with his own fishing knife, then heading in a different direction from the nearest hospital because of the way his car was parked.

The court has previously heard that Tatjana Stefanski was found dead the next day, with police testifying that Vitali Stefanski emerged shoeless from the forest, confessed to killing her and pointed officers towards where her body was found. Stefanski denied that account in his testimony, saying he hoped at the time that she was still alive.

The defence rested its case after cross-examination of Stefanski concluded on Wednesday, with closing arguments expected to begin next week.

The court has heard that Tatjana Stefanski’s heart and a lung were pierced by the wounds to her chest and she also suffered 21 “sharp-force injuries” to her arms and legs.

Vitali Stefanski offered no explanation for most of her injuries. He admitted they all occurred after she entered his car, but denied causing any of them when pressed by a prosecutor on Wednesday.

He said under cross-examination that he saw his ex-wife stab herself twice, though the second time appeared accidental because she had begun “twisting” in the passenger seat.

“The first one, I would say (was a) stab wound, and the second one, I would not call it a stab wound. It was a kind of injury,” he said in a heavy accent.

Stefanski said both he and his ex-wife had entered his black Audi through the passenger door, after she approached him at her home with a bloody nose.

He admitted climbing over a passenger was a strange way to access the driver’s seat, but denied Crown lawyer Laura Drake’s suggestion that he did so to ensure she could not leave.

Stefanski also denied pushing her into the car despite Crown lawyers playing a video of a police interview seven weeks later, in which he tells an officer he grabbed his ex-wife and pushed her to get her into the vehicle.

Though he said he “did everything” to try to get his ex-wife medical help after she stabbed herself, he agreed that she was already bleeding profusely before they left the driveway of her home. But he said he did not call 911 or drive toward the Vernon hospital.

“In that situation, (I) was like really scared,” he said when asked why he instead began driving toward Lumby.

He said he made that choice because his car had been parked facing that direction, and they went in search of a medical clinic.

He said it wasn’t until they reached an intersection in the town that he took the knife from her and he realized it was his own fishing knife.

He said he felt “everything from fear to grief” as he described her getting quiet as they lost cell reception driving along Mable Lake Road. At some point, he said, she decided to lie down and stopped responding, which is when he began accepting “she is maybe dead.”

He said he removed her body from the back seat to see if she was alive, but when he tried to put her body back in the car, it “slipped” down the embankment.

“I couldn’t hold it. So, these two fingers on both legs, on both arms, they go now, and I just couldn’t hold it,” he said.
”In that moment, for me, she was somewhere sliding, and I couldn’t see where she’s going.”

Stefanski testified he also threw other items from inside the car down the embankment, including the knife.

The court has heard a bent and bloodied knife was found near the body and it carried the DNA of both Tatjana and Vitali Stefanski.

It was then that the accused said he went in search of help and found two cabins.

“I was sitting down on the porch and there was a kitchen knife and I told the investigator that it’s still there. It’s a box with the knife coming and you can sharpen it and I just think ‘maybe that’s the solution.'”

He said he decided to take his life, stabbing himself once, about an hour after he left his ex-wife’s body. Drake, the Crown lawyer, showed the court a photo of Stefanski’s injury above his belly button.

Stefanski testified he lost consciousness and after waking up the next morning, he walked out of the woods and back onto the forestry road, where he encountered Mounties following a truck towing his bloodied Audi.

He testified on Tuesday that he told an officer he thought his ex-wife may have been dead but was hoping she was still alive, suggesting he was in such a hurry to get help he did not even bother putting on his shoes when he set off that morning.

“I was still hoping. That’s why that day I was walking, I did not even touch my shoes,” he said, adding that when he was walking to where his ex-wife slid down, he thought “maybe somebody found her.”

He said he initially didn’t realize the vehicle he was approaching was a police car, before he saw that his car was being towed and he told an officer it was his.

Stefanski testified that he then took a knife out and put it on the ground in front of the officer before gesturing in the direction of where he left his ex-wife’s body.

“He asked me if she is dead and I said ‘I don’t know, I think so,'” he said on Tuesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2026.

Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press