A young man accused of a knife attack that caused life-threatening injuries to a teenaged girl in Elliot Lake three years ago repeatedly denied that he stabbed her when he took the witness stand last week.
The 18-year-old, who testified on Wednesday and Thursday, was the only witness called by defence lawyer Eric McCooeye near the end of a three-week jury trial at the Sault Ste. Marie courthouse.
The defendant, who was 16 at the time of the March 11, 2021 incident, can't be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
He has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and aggravated assault stemming from the attack on the then 17-year-old victim.
He also faces a sexual assault charge stemming from incidents alleged to have occurred between Jan.1 and March 11 of that year.
A court-ordered publication ban prohibits reporting information that identifies the victim.
On the witness stand, he testified that he was walking the complainant home when she offered him psychedelic mushrooms — "they looked like weird beef jerky” — and "I thought why not give it a try?"
As they continued on their way, the teen said he started to feel queasy, slowed down, told the girl he didn't feel well and was going home.
"We said our normal goodbye," he explained.
"I gave her a hug, told her I loved her and gave her a kiss on the cheek."
He then turned around and headed home, he said.
McCooeye asked if he had looked back. "I might have glanced back, but I don't recall seeing her," he testified.
He insisted he didn't run away and didn't hear anything.
"No, I don"t remember [hearing] anything distinct, perhaps a couple of crows cawing."
The accused denied that he had told his friend Cooper Morano about what had happened and showed him a knife with blood on it.
He told the court he doesn't recall collecting garbage for his mother that night.
"But I remember she went on a garbage run," he said.
McCooeye asked if he had put a knife in the garbage, and the young man testified that he hadn't.
During cross-examination, prosecutor Robert Skeggs suggested he had planned to kill the girl, had talked about it with his video game friends, and thought he could get away with it.
"That's what really happened," he told the teen.
While giving the complainant a hug, he had stabbed her in the neck, the assistant Crown attorney charged.
"I did not," the accused maintained.
The girl told him to stop, that it hurt. "She was screaming, crying and yelling for help," Skeggs said.
"But you didn't stop. You grabbed her by the arm and stabbed her again in the torso."
And after she fell to the ground, "you turned your back on her, and walked home. You left her there to die."
The defendant again responded: "I did not."
Skeggs questioned whether the witness felt like he was hallucinating after consuming the drugs.
"I just felt like the lights were too bright" when he returned home, the teen said.
During his time on the witness stand, he also denied that he had deleted a number of electronic messages between 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. that the Crown suggested implicated him.