Terrified and hiding in the darkness with her friends, Isabella Restrepo looked at her phone and saw she had missed two Instagram calls.
They were from Emily Altmann, a young woman whom she had never met in person until earlier that night when Altmann and her friends confronted Restrepo over an alleged spilled drink at a southwest London bush party. Restrepo recognized her from social media, but didn’t follow her on Instagram.
She didn’t answer the calls that came in minutes before 1 a.m. After waiting a few minutes, her boyfriend at the time, Logan Marshall, his friends Josue Silva and Matt Swan decided to leave the hiding spot and head toward the open clearing, but Restrepo and her friend Rachel Johnson were too scared to move.
Restrepo told a Superior Court jury at the second-degree murder trial of Altmann, 22, and Carlos Guerra Guerra, 23, that she and Johnson couldn’t see what was happening but she heard voices.
“I heard ‘Why are you hiding?’ ” Restrepo said. “I heard voices of the women who were yelling at me previously.”
Then, Restrepo briefly lost her composure. She dabbed her eyes and took deep breaths. “Within 10 seconds, I heard a – it sounded like a firework. It was a loud popping sound.
“And I heard people talking and laughing and running off. I could hear people running away. And I could hear someone, like, heaving,” she said through tears. She heard both female and male voices.
She and Johnson left their hiding place to find Silva on the ground, lying on his back and struggling to breathe. They lifted up his shirt and saw he had a wound in his abdomen.
Silva would die from the injury, a gunshot that was the violent conclusion of what was supposed to have been a happy night on July 31, 2021, shared by young people celebrating a friend’s 18th birthday.
Altmann, 22, and Guerra Guerra, 23, have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and not guilty to assault with a weapon, namely a blunt object, on Marshall. The jury heard the opening statement Wednesday from assistant Crown attorney Kristina Mildred who said the shooting was sparked by an accusation that a drink had been spilled on Altmann and her friends.
Mildred told the jury that the Crown is expected to present evidence that Altmann contacted Guerra Guerra to settle the score. He drove across the city with some friends and arrived at the bush bash armed and masked. There was a physical confrontation with some of the party-goers, and Silva was fatally shot.
The first witness at the trial was Silva’s father, Ricardo Silva Sr., who told the jury their family immigrated to Canada from Mexico in 2002. His wife was pregnant with Josue, their second of three sons, at the time.
Silva was about to enter his second year of business studies at Western University. He was holding down two jobs, one in construction, one in retail. In the hours before his death, he shared a take-out meal with his family, asked permission to go to the party and for some of his dad’s beer.
Silva’s father checked his son’s backpack before he left and discovered he had taken twice as many cans as requested. Silva requested the extra drinks “for his friend, Logan,” his father testified.
Before leaving, he kissed his parents and said, “See you later.” Silva’s father said they expected him home at 2 a.m. Instead, at that hour, a police officer was at their door to say their son had died.
Restrepo, 21, was next to testify and identified Altmann in the courtroom. She told the jury that she and 10 girlfriends met at a friend’s house and walked to the bush party down the unlit dirt path to the clearing off Pack Road to join Marshall and his friends.
Marshall was by the bonfire with Silva, 18, and other buddies. The mood on the summer night was light, playful and fun. There were a lot of people there and Restrepo told the jury she was surprised to see Jamie Falardeau, someone she knew from high school, who was with Altmann and another woman and man she did not know.
At that time she said she had “neutral to negative feelings” about Falardeau. It had been more than a year since they had interacted. They had a brief conversation.
“I didn’t really care,” Restrepo said about Altmann, Falardeau and her friends being at the party. “I was expecting my friends because it was a friend’s party… Just that it was kind of random that they were there.”
What wasn’t expected was the altercation five to 10 minutes after Restrepo had thrown a can. “It could have been alcohol, it might not have been alcohol,” she said. But Altmann and the woman she didn’t know “come up to me and yell at me … that I had spilled a drink on one of them, somebody.”
After reviewing her police statement she added more detail. “They said we poured drinks on them and we took a recording of it.”
Restrepo said the three-minute-long confrontation escalated. She and Johnson denied their accusations while Altmann and the unknown woman were yelling at them and suggesting they contact “an uncle, a brother-in-law, maybe a boyfriend.”
Altman, Falardeau and the unknown woman stood a metre from Restrepo and Johnson. “I was not yelling. I might have been stern in my voice but I was not yelling,” she said.
“I was feeling like it was pointless and I just wanted it to stop so we could go back to enjoying time with our friends,” she said.
Marshall, Silva and two other friends walked up to the accusers. Marshall spoke and Silva said nothing. Restrepo and Johnson walked away.
Restrepo said she didn’t see how the exchange ended and didn’t remember seeing the women again. The party “went back to normal.”
But then the text messages began to pop up on their phones. “We were told to try to either leave the bush bash party or hide because we had received news that people were arriving and coming back with weapons,” Restrepo said.
She had a text from a friend who saw the armed people along the path. Marshall received messages as well. Restrepo, Johnson, Marshall, Swan and Silva decided to hide deeper into the bush because “we knew they had weapons and we were scared.”
That’s when Restrepo received Altmann’s failed Instagram calls. And minutes later, Silva was shot.
Restrepo said she, Johnson and Swan, plus other people from the party stayed with Silva and she worried about where Marshall was.
Her testimony continues on Friday.