One of the Prince George RCMP officers called to investigate a home invasion robbery on March 7, 2023 testified in BC Supreme Court on Wednesday, May 7 about arriving at the scene.
Const. Greg Stewart was the last witness for the Crown in the second-degree murder case against Dakota Rayn Keewatin, born in 1993.
Stewart said he was on regular uniformed duty when he was dispatched before 9 p.m. to the incident, which was said to involve firearms. Stewart entered with another officer through the main entry of the Connaught Hill apartments and knocked on the door of apartment 107 at the end of a hallway.
“I don't recall hearing anything from the outside, I knocked loudly on the door,” Stewart testified before Justice Ronald Tindale. “I yelled that it was the police, and immediately I was greeted by a female voice, which sounded kind of frantic to me, saying something to the effect of ‘who is it?’ I, again, yelled that it was the police.”
Stewart said he began to hear rustling sounds coming from the unit, as if the woman was trying to barricade the door. She did eventually open the door and Stewart noticed a cut on her left knee. He heard a male voice inside the unit, but did not immediately see the male.
The officer entered and went to the left, where he saw a male standing at the end of a hallway. On the ground, up against the baseboard, was what appeared to be a black handgun with a large silver suppressor.
Stewart said he did not remember what the male said verbatim, but “it would have been to the effect of it belonged to them or whoever was here and I was able to wrestle it away from them.”
Officers escorted the apartment’s two occupants to a police vehicle and Stewart helped secure the crime scene. Another officer showed him shell casings on the floor.
Stewart said that he could not recognize the man in the courtroom — Keewatin — as someone he dealt with in the apartment on March 7, 2023.
The case is under a ban on publication of information about the victim.
Defence lawyer Jason LeBlond said he would tell Tindale Thursday, May 8 whether his client would testify in his defence. Dates are to be determined for closing Crown and defence submissions.
The trial is happening almost two months after BC Supreme Court Justice John Gibb-Carsley acquitted Keewatin and co-accused Kerridge Andrew Lowley, 49, of aggravated assault and break-and-enter.
They were charged after a grisly 2022 machete attack at a Prince George motel related to a drug debt dispute.
