B.C. murder suspect says ex-wife stabbed herself and he tried to get her help

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He said under cross-examination on Wednesday that he saw her stab herself twice, though the second time appeared accidental because she had begun “twisting” in the passenger seat.

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“The first one, I would say (was a) stab wound, and the second one, I would not call it a stab wound. It was a kind of injury,” he said.

The court has heard that Tatjana Stefanski’s heart and a lung were pierced by the wounds to her chest and she also suffered 21 “sharp-force injuries” to her arms and legs. Vitali Stefanski has offered no explanation for most of her injuries.

Stefanski said both he and his ex-wife entered his black Audi through the passenger door on the morning of April 13, 2024, after she approached him at her home with a bloody nose.

He admitted climbing over a passenger was a strange way to access the driver’s seat, but denied Crown lawyer Laura Drake’s suggestion that he did so to ensure she could not leave.

Stefanski denied pushing her into the car despite Crown lawyers playing a video of a police interview seven weeks later, in which he tells an officer he grabbed his ex-wife and pushed her to get her into the vehicle.

Though he said he “did everything” to try to get help, he agreed that his ex-wife was already bleeding profusely before they left the driveway of her home. But he said he did not call 911 or drive toward the Vernon hospital.

“In that situation, (I) was like really scared,” he said when asked why he instead began driving toward Lumby.

He said he made that choice because his car had been parked facing that direction, and they went in search of a medical clinic.

He said it wasn’t until they reached an intersection in the town that he took the knife from her and he realized it was his own fishing knife.

Stefanski said they went looking for a hospital but were unsuccessful and she got quiet as they lost cell reception driving along Mable Lake Road.

He said that at some point he removed her body from the back seat but when he attempted to put her body back in the car, it “slipped” down the embankment.

Stefanski has also contradicted police who earlier testified that he confessed to murdering his ex-wife when they encountered him on the forestry road on April 14, 2024. He said on Tuesday that he told an officer he thought she may have been dead but “was hoping” she was still alive.

He said he had approached a vehicle that day, not initially realizing it was a police car, hoping they could help him call an ambulance. He said he then saw his car was being towed, so told the officer it was his.

Stefanski also testified that he then took a knife out and put it on the ground in front of the officer before gesturing in the direction of where he left his ex-wife’s body.

“He asked me if she is dead and I said ‘I don’t know, I think so,'” he said on Tuesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2026.

Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press