‘Going to be alone’: Daughter tells of B.C. murder suspect’s message as mom vanished

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Eighteen-year-old Martin, who goes by her mother’s maiden name instead of her legal surname of Stefanski, said her father called her endearing names in the audio message and wasn’t speaking normally, telling her he wanted to see her but it “hadn’t worked out.”

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She said he also told her to stay away from her mother’s parents.

“Then he also brought up how my mother made life hell and that I would soon come to realize that in the future,” she said.

Martin did not look at her father as he watched her in court, even as she walked past the Plexiglas defendant’s box.

Vitali Stefanski has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the death of his ex-wife.

The court has heard that Martin lived with her mother, brother, Tatjana Stefanski’s boyfriend Jason Gaudreault, and his son, in the village of Lumby, about 25 kilometres east of Vernon, B.C.

Martin said she has no memory of Vitali Stefanski ever entering the house. She said he would usually stay at the top of the driveway, but noted that he had showed up “multiple times a week leading up to everything.”

Crown lawyer Rigel Tessmann told the court Tuesday that Tatjana Stefanski’s body was found six kilometres from where her ex-husband’s abandoned black Audi, with bloodied seats, was found on a forest road. A bent and bloodied knife that carried both their DNA was found near the body, Tessmann said.

Tessmann told the jury Vitali Stefanski emerged shoeless from the forest and admitted to police that he had killed his ex-wife.

The defence has not yet told the jury its theory of events.

An admissions of fact, which was signed by Stefanski’s lawyer, was also read out to the jury by Crown lawyer Laura Drake on Wednesday.

It said Vitali Stefanski was transported to the Vernon hospital on April 14, 2024, by police to “obtain treatment from a self-inflicted stab wound.”

Reading from the document, Drake told the court the RCMP lab that analyzed the swabs taken from inside the Audi also only found two DNA profiles — Tatjana and Vitali Stefanski.

Martin told the court on Wednesday that on the day of the disappearance, she had slept at her boyfriend’s house and had missed a call from her mother, who texted her at 7:47 a.m. saying her father was “leaving” and to message him if she wanted to say goodbye.

She said that was the last time she would ever hear from her mother.

Ten minutes later, she would receive her dad’s Russian voice message.

The admissions of fact says Gaudreault called Tatjana Stefanski’s phone at 8:13 a.m. and it was not answered.

Martin recounted later receiving a call from Gaudreault, who told her that both her parents had disappeared.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” she said, when asked about her reaction to the idea of her parents leaving together. “I didn’t think she would willingly do that. It was very out of character.”

Martin said that after she hung up with Gaudreault, she called police and her paternal grandparents, and made Facebook posts asking people to keep an eye out for either of her parents.

Her brother, now 11, told the court on Tuesday that on the day of his mother’s disappearance, his father gave him a suitcase.

His sister testified that it contained items including her father’s watch, chain, silver plates, binoculars, his German passport, identification and a photo of her as a child. It also contained keys to a storage locker at the business next door that held more of her father’s property.

She said she moved to Canada from Germany with her parents when she was five years old, but her parents separated when she was around 12. The admissions of fact says the couple divorced April 9, 2021.

Martin said her relationship with her father broke down as she got older and she decided to limit contact because “there was a lot of toxicity.”

She said by early 2024, she was “almost never” speaking to her father. “Maybe once a month at most,” she said.

“He wasn’t very happy with my mother, so there would be a lot of name-calling and derogatory terms, which I didn’t appreciate.”

Tessmann told the jury on Tuesday that evidence would show Tatjana Stefanski suffered 21 “sharp force wounds” to her legs, arms and hands as well as seven stab wounds to her chest and ribs that injured her heart and lungs and led to her death.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2026.

Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press