A Crown lawyer says police were with an abandoned car as it was being towed from a British Columbia forest road when murder suspect Vitali Stefanski emerged shoeless from the woods and told them he had killed his ex-wife, whose body was then found with a bloody knife that carried both their DNA.
Rigel Tessmann told the second-degree murder trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops on Tuesday that Tatjana Stefanski’s body was located six kilometres from the black Audi, halfway down an embankment near Mable Lake on April 14, 2024.
“The man’s first words were ‘that is my car. I am the reason you’re here,'” Tessmann told the jury.
He said an officer then asked where Tatjana Stefanski was, and the officer would testify that Vitali Stefanski responded: “Yes, she is dead. Yes, I have killed her.”
“It was in that moment that the police operation shifted from a missing-persons investigation to an arrest for murder,” Tessmann said.
Tessmann said in the Crown’s opening statement that Tatjana Stefanski, 44, died after suffering multiple stab wounds, including one to the chest and six to her rib cage, that pierced her heart and a lung.
Tessmann said that just uphill from her body, police found a bent knife, and its “bloody blade held the DNA of Tatjana and the handle had her DNA and the accused’s.”
Vitali Stefanski had pleaded not guilty on Monday and the defence has not yet told the jury its theory of events.
Tatjana Stefanski was last seen on April 13, 2024, at a property in the village of Lumby, about 25 kilometres east of Vernon in the B.C. Interior.
Mounties said at the time she had been reported abducted and her body was found by officers in a rural area outside town the next day.
They said a man believed to be involved in the death “was arrested in the general vicinity,” but was later freed with conditions. Vitali Stefanski, who had two children with his ex-wife, was charged with second-degree murder on May 31, 2024.
Tessmann told the jury on Tuesday that Tatjana Stefanski was last seen by her son outside their home, talking to his father.
The boy, now 11, testified virtually on Tuesday that his father handed him a suitcase at the top of the driveway on the property where he lived with his mother and sister, as well as Tatjana Stefanski’s boyfriend and his son.
He said his father had called his mother to ask her to come speak with him at his car. The boy said he walked by her as he carried the suitcase to the house, but they did not speak.
A video of a 2024 police interview of the boy was played for the jury, in which the boy said the suitcase was filled with expensive items, including silver, a watch, jewelry and sunglasses.
During his opening statement, Tessmann had told the court that a grainy video from a neighbouring storage unit facility would show two figures getting into a black car from the passenger’s side before leaving the property.
The prosecutor said Tatjana Stefanski’s daughter reported her missing and police soon received a tip about a black Audi matching the description of the suspect’s car driving up the service road.
He said police found a car and saw blood on the driver, passenger and back seats. Police broke into the car to check the trunk but no one was inside.
Tessmann said police searched the area and kept watch over the vehicle overnight, but found nothing.
He said the Mounties decided to tow the car, which is when Vitali Stefanski emerged from the woods.
Evidence would show Tatjana Stefanski suffered 21 “sharp force wounds,” to her body, including her legs, arms and hands, which an expert would testify were consistent with defensive wounds, Tessmann said.
She also suffered the seven stab wounds to her chest and ribs. “Some of those stab wounds injured her lung and heart leading to her death,” he told the jury.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 26, 2026.
By Brieanna Charlebois | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
