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'I heard it from his mouth': witness says Denecho King mentioned killing

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Defence lawyer Jay Bran, left, walks with his client Friday morning. Brendan Burke/NNSL photo.

A witness testified Wednesday that Denecho King – on trial for murder and attempted murder in a 2014 attack that killed one man and left another seriously injured – said he “killed two people,” hours after the brutal act occurred.

“I heard it with my own ears. I heard it from (King's) mouth,” the witness said, answering questions from King's lawyer Jay Bran during cross-examination in NWT Supreme Court.

The man, the first of three witnesses called to the stand Wednesday, testified he had been drinking at the Northern Lites motel in the early hours of Dec. 14, 2014 in room 204 on the motel's second floor.

The room – along with who was in it and what was said and done by those inside – has been a focus in the Crown's attempts this week to chronologically map the movements of King in the morning hours of Dec.14 – the day best friends John Wifladt and Colin Digness were found badly injured in a Sunridge Place apartment unit.

Wifladt later died of his injuries.

The witness' jarring account of what King said, along with his testimony that he was laying on one of the motel beds when King walked into the room, was challenged by Bran, who presented previous statements the witness made to police following the December slaying.

Highlighting conversations the witness had with RCMP – first in December 2014 and again almost two years later in November 2016 – Bran zeroed in on inconsistencies between what he told police then and what he told the court Wednesday.

Transcripts of the first statement revealed the witness had said he never saw King while awake, and that he was sleeping when the accused entered the room.

A witness at Denecho King's trial Wednesday said the accused killer told him he killed two people during a night of heavy drinking the morning of the attack.
NNSL file photo

“I wasn't sleeping. I was laying down,” answered the witness Wednesday.
Bran then focused on the fact the witness hadn't mentioned hearing King say he “killed two people,” until making a second statement to RCMP – almost two years after his motel meeting with the 25-year-old man now accused of murder.

Bran asked the witness to consider the possibility he had adopted the idea from friends or the media – a suggestion the witness denied.

The witness, who admitted to being highly intoxicated that winter morning, recalled King coming into the room to sit down, as a handful of others passed shots of alcohol around. The witness testified he awoke with King sleeping beside him. The witness said he left the motel before King woke up.

In the Crown's deconstruction of the comings and goings at the 50 Street motel in the early morning of Dec.14, the court heard a total of six males had been in the room a various times.

Three of those individuals, all brothers, took the stand Tuesday to recall what little memories they have of the alcohol-fueled night and morning.

A 27-year-old man, who rented room 204 the day before the apartment attack, said he and his brothers travelled to Yellowknife after a day of drinking, ending up at the Northern Lites motel where they continued to consume alcohol.
The man testified he remembered King entering the motel room – but not if he said anything – and that he didn't know him at the time.

The witness was shown video footage taken from a Forrest Drive convenience store around 5:30 a.m., on the same morning. The witness, his brother and a man alleged to be King can be seen on the security camera buying items – but the witness couldn't remember the early morning trip either.

On Tuesday, media reported one of the men who was with King at the convenience store testified he saw blood on King's arm.

In the video, the man alleged to be King is wearing a stripped Adidas jacket – the same one seen in CCTV footage captured in the Northern Lites lobby in the early hours of Dec. 14, when a man identified as King entered the lobby, gripping his hands as if holding a baseball bat while making swinging motions as he spoke to the front desk clerk.
Through witness testimony and video evidence presented throughout the trial, King has been placed at multiple locations throughout Yellowknife on the night of Dec. 13, and the morning of Dec. 14.

King has been placed at Fort Gary apartments, Northern Lites motel and, through testimony from a former resident last week, at Sunridge Place apartments – the scene of the bloody and deadly attack.

While circumstantial evidence has led the Crown's case against King so far, a route Godfrey said they'd go down from the beginning, prosecutors are expected to introduce the first piece of forensic evidence – DNA on handles of swords found in the apartment of survivor Colin Digness – to prove King's guilt.

The trial will enter its third week on Monday.