Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
Editor’s note: To clarify, Ermine’s past assault convictions were for events that occurred before Bear’s death, not after.
An accused Muskoday murderer took the stand in her own defence before evidence closed at the jury trial on Monday.
Robyn Ermine, 30, is charged with second-degree murder and testified in Prince Albert court that the Feb. 21, 2015 death of her boyfriend Evan Bear “still doesn’t feel real.”
Court earlier heard Bear died after being stabbed in the neck at the Muskoday home they’d been living in at the time.
Throughout the previous day the couple had been arguing over Bear’s feelings of jealousy about Ermine drinking when he’s not around, and about Bear deciding whether or not to move to Alberta, Ermine said.
She said as a couple, they had a history of getting into physical fights that left her injured. Ermine herself has a history of convictions for assaults which occurred before Bear’s death.
Leading up to the death, Bear, Ermine, and Ermine’s visiting stepsister Shelinda Vallier had spent the night drinking into the early hours, Ermine said, with the couple’s argument hitting a boiling point when she threw Bear’s shoes out the door and told him to go to his mother’s nearby house.
When asked why Ermine didn’t go when Bear refused and she knew things were escalating, she said because Vallier was there too. Ermine said Bear then started pushing her and she pushed back, but didn’t recall who punched who first.
Ermine said Bear started choking her, and in her panic she reached back on the kitchen counter for a canister to hit him with.
She said she thought she got ahold of a knife sharpening rod instead, and “I just remember that I swung.” When defence asked if the handle of what she grabbed could also have been a knife, she said “yes.” That acknowledgement went even further when the Crown asked if it’s unlikely she would have grabbed the sharpener instead of one of the many knives from the knife block, to which Ermine said “I guess.”
Earlier in the trial, Vallier said it’s possible Bear could have been choking Ermine but Bear’s back was blocking her view.
Ermine cried throughout her testimony but insists she made a swinging motion intended to hit him in the face, not a stabbing motion, and that she didn’t think she would puncture him. She acknowledges she didn’t alert Bear to what she had in her hand before swinging.
All three had been drinking heavily but in Vallier’s account, she said it seemed like less than a minute from the fight’s start to the end.
Another crucial point is why Ermine started mopping the kitchen floor while Vallier was trying to save Bear’s life. Ermine said several times she doesn’t remember but was in shock and possibly blacked out. However, she countered Vallier’s testimony that Ermine hadn’t held a towel to Bear’s neck. Ermine said she did and that in her panic had also tried to find shoes for Bear in order to get him in a car and meet an ambulance halfway.
Defence also called Ermine’s mother Leona Bear to the stand, with Leona getting emotional as she described being woken by her husband that morning to go to the home where Evan died.
Leona had limited involvement at that time, as Evan’s blood loss was already too severe. It was Leona who called police to report where Ermine was.
She further reinforced Ermine’s accounts of past fights with Bear.
Closing arguments will take place on Tuesday, with the jury receiving their charge on Wednesday before starting deliberation.