The teenage girl accused of killing Ashlee Hyatt at a 2010 house party in Peachland took the stand Tuesday and blamed the murder on another youth.
The accused, who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, testified that it was a third girl who fatally stabbed 16-year-old Hyatt with a knife at the party.
“The first time I saw the knife was when Ashlee Hyatt was on the ground,” she told the court.
The teenager, who admitted to getting in a fist fight with Hyatt and the third girl the night of the murder, said she only grabbed the weapon away to protect the victim.
She also contradicted the testimony of a Crown witness who recalled watching her get the knife from the kitchen.
“No, I was not in the kitchen grabbing a knife. That did not happen,” the accused said.
In an apparent explanation for why she fled the scene, the girl also told the court she left after another friend threatened her.
Under cross-examination, she was asked how Hyatt’s blood wound up on her sweater in two places and on her pant leg.
The girl no explanation at first offered, but later suggested it might have happened during the melee she described with the two other girls.
Hyatt’s grieving mother has been waiting two and a half years to hear what her daughter’s alleged killer has to say, and took Tuesday’s testimony in stride.
“I have no comment right now. For me, I think it’s a good day. I’m just not ready to talk about it yet,” Charrie Griswold-Hyatt told reporters.
The trial continues on Wednesday.
With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Kent Molgat
