B.C. jury rejects explanations of ex-husband, guilty of murdering Tatjana Stefanski

Vitali Stefanski said he had answers for many of the circumstances surrounding the death of his ex-wife, Tatjana Stefanski, in 2024.

He said he got into his black Audi by climbing over her in the passenger seat, as seen on a surveillance video, not because he was trying to prevent her escaping, but because she had a bloody nose and he wanted to get her help.

He said he drove in the opposite direction of the nearest hospital because of the way his car was parked atop her driveway.

Her wounds with his fishing knife? She had stabbed herself, he said, “like a suicide.”

As for the suggestion he dumped her body that was found the next day beside a rural forest service road, Stefanski told the jurors at his B.C. Supreme Court trial in Kamloops that he had been trying to put her back in the vehicle when she “slipped” down an embankment.

The jury instead sided with Crown prosecutors, who told them Stefanski’s explanations defied common sense, and on Friday they found him guilty of second-degree murder.

It was a unanimous decision that came less than a day after jurors received instructions from Justice Bradford Smith.

After the verdict, Smith asked jurors for recommendations on parole eligibility — Stefanski faces a mandatory life sentence, and the period before eligibility for parole must be a minimum of 10 years.

He urged them to consider Stefanski’s character, the nature of the offence and the circumstances surrounding it.

“You are not required to make a recommendation, but if you do, your recommendation will be considered by me,” the judge said.

Their response was not read out in court.

Tatjana Stefanski’s boyfriend Jason Gaudreault said he was “so happy with the outcome” in a post to social media Friday, adding that it was “a hard, emotional day.”

“I need to process everything,” he said in the post.

“The fight isn’t over but at least common sense and evidence proves what he did to Tatjana. For now I will just try to process and try to figure out how our new life journey will go.”

The verdict comes more than two years after Stefanski was arrested in the forest outside Lumby, B.C., on April 14, 2024, the day after the disappearance of his ex-wife, with whom he had two children.

But he was freed with conditions and residents of Lumby, a community of about 2,000 people in the hills of the North Okanagan in B.C.’s Interior, spoke of living in fear after the arrest.

It was not until more than a month later, on May 31, that Stefanski was charged with murder and taken into custody again.

He had been represented by a lawyer for much of the trial, but Stefanski fired him after the defence rested its case, citing a “fundamental breakdown in the solicitor-client relationship.”

Stefanski’s applications for a mistrial, to switch to a judge-only trial, or for an adjournment to instruct new counsel were all dismissed. Stefanski was instructed to finish the trial self-represented, and he delivered his own closing statement with the aid of a court-appointed amicus curiae, or friend of the court.

During the trial, police testified that they arrested Stefanski after he emerged shoeless from the forest and encountered them as his car was being towed, confessing to the killing before gesturing in the direction of the body.

Stefanski denied it. “I never said that,” Stefanski said in closing on Thursday.

He told the jury that when he was arrested he believed Tatjana may still have been alive. He said he had survived a self-described suicide attempt at a cabin in the woods, resulting in a single small wound, so she may have too, since she was “a strong person.”

But the court heard Tatjana Stefanski was stabbed in the chest seven times, injuring her heart and lungs, and leading to her death. The trial heard she also suffered multiple “sharp-force injuries” to her arms and legs and wounds to her hands that a pathologist, Dr. Eric Bol, said were consistent with “defensive-type” injuries.

Crown lawyer Laura Drake told the jury in her closing arguments on Wednesday that the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence was that Stefanski stabbed his ex-wife to death.

The former couple’s son and daughter, now 11 and 18, testified against their father at trial, which was also attended by Tatjana’s partner, Jason Gaudreault, who now has custody of them.

The trial heard a voice message in Russian that Vitali Stefanski left his daughter, Selina Martin, the morning their mother disappeared, telling her that she and her younger brother were going to be alone and that their mother had “destroyed our lives.”

During his cross-examination, Vitali Stefanski denied it was a goodbye message.

While he maintained his innocence throughout the trial and denied causing any harm to his ex-wife, he agreed she was apparently uninjured when she entered his Audi but appeared lifeless when he lifted her out beside the forest service road.

He ultimately argued he had panicked and made poor choices but was “just a witness.”

The jury disagreed.

Stefanski will be back in court July 13 to fix a date for sentencing.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 26, 2026.

Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press