As hard as he tried, Emily Altmann’s defence lawyer couldn’t get Crown witness Rachel Johnson to admit she was in a Snapchat video on her best friend’s phone taken at a southwest London bush bash shortly before a teen was shot to death.
That’s because, she said repeatedly, it wasn’t her.
The video in question was found on the cellphone of her best friend, Isabella Restrepo, and showed mere seconds of a woman with a purse who was standing in a group with Altmann at the bonfire in a clearing near Pack Road.
A woman with blonde hair wearing a white shirt can be heard laughing and making a comment to Restrepo: “Wait a sec. No, I can’t.”
Defence lawyer Nathan Gorham has argued the video is evidence of cyberbullying, something he said Altmann has experienced repeatedly and the video was made to humiliate Altmann and her friends.
He kept suggesting to Johnson she was part of the bullying that occurred before Western University student Josue Silva, 18, was shot to death on July 31, 2021 and that the blonde woman in the video was her.
Not so, Johnson insisted, and later the jury saw evidence to prove her point.
Altmann, 22, and Carlos Guerra Guerra, 23, have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and not guilty to assault with a weapon on Logan Marshall, Silva’s best friend.
Johnson’s cross-examination followed the same aggressive rapid-fire tone Gorham has used since the trial began more than a week ago. With each witness, the defence’s argument is coming more in focus: that Altmann is a victim, that Silva and his friends were the aggressors and the friends at the party have concocted an alibi to cover up what happened.
That’s not what the Crown says. The witnesses have described a happy gathering of young people on a summer night that was interrupted by a testy exchange between Altmann and her friends and Restrepo, who had thrown an open beverage can she found on the ground in the direction, Johnson said, of their own friend group.
One of Altmann’s friends confronted Restrepo, accusing her of hitting her boyfriend with it. She and Altmann yelled at Restrepo and called her names until Marshall, her boyfriend at the time, Silva and their friends stepped in.
Altmann’s group left the party, and the jury has seen video of a white SUV rolling up to a corner where Altmann and her friends were waiting near the entrance to the bush. Two men dressed in black and wearing balaclavas got out and one Crown witness testified he saw one of the men with “a sword” on his waistband.
Marshall, Silva, Restrepo, Johnson and others hid in the bushes after they were warned people were looking for them. Silva was shot after emerging from his hiding place. Johnson said Silva didn’t want to leave until he gathered up all his friends.
The suggestion Johnson was in Restrepo’s video was first made when Johnson began testifying Tuesday. Johnson said she recalled she was wearing a black crew-neck shirt that had a colourful image of a Nirvana album cover on the front.
She wore the T-shirt over a long-sleeve black shirt and she thought later she should have taken it off and used it to help staunch Silva’s bleeding after they found him dying of the fatal gunshot wound.
Undeterred, Gorham came back aggressively with the same conclusion Wednesday – that it was Johnson in the video and she was lying.
Johnson didn’t bend. The woman in the video isn’t her. “I know what I was wearing that night and that does not match. . . . I know my truth and I know that girl in the video is not me.”
Her testimony was later confirmed. In re-examination by assistant Crown attorney Kristina Mildred, Johnson was shown a surveillance video of her and her friends arriving at the party. She identified as many people as she could and she pointed out herself wearing the black shirt.
Gorham hammered at Johnson about her assertion she thought it was “a joke” when Restrepo threw the can and that it was a prank she had seen at other bush parties. She testified she didn’t see where it landed.
He reminded Johnson the party occurred during COVID-19 guidelines and there was information everywhere to be responsible because of the threat, including young people.
“You would have this jury believe that picking up a drink in the middle of a pandemic and throwing it over a group of people and spraying them with an unknown person’s germs is just no big deal. . . . How could you possibly think that?” Gorham said.
Johnson said she couldn’t be sure what the restrictions were at the time but said: “I thought it was an innocent joke.”
Gorham said Johnson must think now “that it’s a very rude and insulting and indeed an outrageous and uncivil thing to throw an open drink from some unknown stranger over 50 people’s heads during the middle of a pandemic when their loved ones might be immunocompromised.”
Said Johnson: “I admit that it is not a funny joke. And people do have a right be offended.” But, she added, when Restrepo threw the can “it was not meant to be a malicious and disgusting act.”
She said Altmann and her friends “got very angry, very quickly” once they confronted Restrepo about the spilled drink.
Gorham pressed Johnson about why police weren’t called when everyone was hiding and why it took almost 10 minutes for someone to call 911 after they found Silva shot in the abdomen.
He suggested it was because Johnson knew her friends had the weapons and everyone was worried they would get in trouble.
“That is not correct,” she said. “The emotions were very high. No one knew exactly what had happened. For myself, I had gone around and asked people to call 911.”
In re-examination, she told Mildred she had never experienced a similar situation.
“No one really knew what to do and there were some things that I could have done that I didn’t. When I say emotions were high, I mean, I was not thinking straight, I had never experienced that before and it was very emotional and scary.
“I would say the truth when I say I don’t know, in that moment, why I didn’t call 911 and I regret it because, when you reflect back on a night like that, it’s hard not to think, ‘What could I have done for things to turn out differently?’ And I don’t know if things would have. It’s a regret of mine.”
London police Det. Jerry Rozic of the forensics identification unit began his testimony late Wednesday and is expected to continue Thursday.