A witness's temper flared during cross examination Monday at the trial for Cody Allan Legebokoff, accused of murdering a teenage girl and three women.
Sheriffs took Jackie Willard into cells after she refused to provide any further testimony when defence lawyer Jim Heller pressed her over whether she had absconded with $300 Legebokoff had given her one night to buy him some crack cocaine.
When Heller accused her of intentionally taking Legebokoff's money and going to a friend's place instead of coming back with the drugs, Willard became confrontational and questioned how his line of questioning related to the trial.
"It's about killing people, not about ripping people off, right?" Willard replied. "That's besides the point."
When Heller went on to suggest she lied to the court, Willard stormed out of the witness box and said Legebokoff is a "goof and he should be killed too."
Sheriffs stopped her from leaving the courtroom and returned her to the witness box. Willard made it clear she would not answer any further questions and was taken to the courthouse cells.
Before the outburst, Willard had testified she had bought crack cocaine for Legebokoff as many as four times with him giving her the money and then waiting in his truck at the 20th and Victoria McDonalds while she went to a dealer living in a house on Quince Street.
She said the amount of money he gave her increased each time. It was on the last occasion that he gave her the $300, Willard told the court. Willard said she either took too long - later adding she had taken a "shot" of methamphetamine at the house - or Legebokoff simply got impatient and left by the time she returned to the spot.
She said that about a month later, she ran into Legebokoff and told him welfare day was coming up soon and she would pay him back as best she could. Contrary to a concern he would be mad at her, Willard said Legebokoff was not angry. It was the last time she saw him, Willard said.
Heller had been focusing on apparent discrepancies between what Willard had told the court and what she told police in an interview given in 2012 when the outburst occurred. Willard was returned to the stand in the afternoon and answered the remainder of Heller's questions and conceded she might have stolen Legebokoff's money.
Willard had also stressed ripping people off was not something she liked to do but she was often on crystal methamphetamine at the time and much of what happened "was a blur."
Parrett later told the jury he would have more to say about how they can treat the episode after he had a chance to discuss the matter with counsel.
The high emotion continued when a tearful and sobbing Crystal Johnny recognized two of Legebokoff's alleged murder victims in a photobook, Cynthia Frances Maas and Natasha Lynn Montgomery.
Johnny went on to testify she sold twice sold crack cocaine to Legebokoff. On the first time, she said Legebokoff saw her and a friend walking along Queensway one day. Legebokoff gave her $60 - enough for three rocks - and she went into an apartment building on Queensway, came back out with the crack and he dropped her off further along the stretch.
About a month later, Legebokoff once again got her to purchase some crack for him but this time they went out to L.C. Gunn Park in his pickup truck because he wanted to smoke the drug away from where people could see him.
Johnny said Legebokoff's truck stopped running once they got into the park and she began to get a funny feeling. She locked the cab doors when Legebokoff went outside to look at the truck and grabbed his cellphone and kept hold of hers.
And when they walked back down the hill towards Highway 97 South, Johnny said she made sure Legebokoff stayed in front of her. They eventually found a pay phone near a gas bar and restaurant in the BCR Industrial Site and called a taxi.
The cabbie dropped her off on Queensway and continued on with Legebokoff still in the cab. Testimony last week from cab driver Oliver Dailey indicated the incident occurred in August 2010.
Johnny went on to say the two times she sold drugs to Legebokoff occurred after she saw Maas and Legebokoff driving by in his truck.
She and Maas had shared a cell while in custody at Prince George Regional Correctional Centre and from running into each other at the Association Advocating for Women and Children Shelter, the court was told.
Under cross examination from Heller, Johnny agreed that Maas had told her she once owned a crack shack and owed a drug debt in Fort St. John.
Johnny also agreed Maas once told her "she was doing something she knew was wrong and she knew what was going to happen." It was so memorable, Johnny remembered the comment word-for-word, the court heard.
Johnny also there was a conversation about Montgomery owing a drug debt in Quesnel.
Maas' heavily decomposed body was found in L.C.Gunn Park on Oct. 9, 2010 and Montgomery's body has never been found.
In earlier testimony, the court heard that Jill Stacey Stuchenko was taking tentative steps towards getting herself off crack cocaine and out of the street life just prior to her disappearance in October 2009.
Les McDermid, a friend of Stuchenko's who had let her stay at his home, tesified that in the days just prior to the 2009 Thanksgiving long weekend, he had twice driven her to a rehab centre on Alward.
However, Stuchenko was gone for almost the entire weekend, leaving the home on the Saturday afternoon. And when she returned a couple days later, she looked haggard and appeared to have been partying, McDermid said.
He tried to talk her into staying long enough for her to have something to eat but she was in too much of a rush. She grabbed a couple of papers and headed back out the door. McDermid said he thought it was something to do with her children.
"She wanted to get off [crack]," McDermid said. "That's why she was getting into the program.
"She had stopped before because they were talking about adopting her children and she wanted her kids back. She was serious about getting them."
Stuchenko's body was found in a shallow grave at a gravel pit off Otway Road on Oct. 20, 2009.
Legebokoff is also accused of murdering Loren Donn Leslie, 15. He was arrested on a charge of murder shortly after her body was found near a gravel pit north of Vanderhoof on the night of Nov. 27, 2010.
