A Mountie has told a B.C. murder trial about approaching an abandoned vehicle owned by a suspect and being struck by the amount of dried blood inside.
Const. Clay Fixsen told Vitali Stefanski’s second-degree murder trial in Kamloops on Thursday that he was alone when responding to a tip about the vehicle parked about 25 kilometres down a forest service road near Mable Lake, B.C.
He recounted to the jury of running the vehicle’s plates, determining it was Stefanski’s and then arming himself with a semi-automatic rifle and approaching it cautiously to see if anyone was inside.
It was empty, but the passenger seat was folded all the way back and there was blood on the headrest of the driver’s side, he said.
“To me, it looked like there was some kind of struggle inside that car and someone was seriously hurt,” Fixsen said.
Stefanski pleaded not guilty to murdering his ex-wife, 44-year-old Tatjana Stefanski, whose body was found the next day about six kilometres away from the vehicle.
Crown lawyer Rigel Tessmann told the B.C. Supreme Court at the start of the trial this week that a bent and bloodied knife that had both Tatjana and Vitali Stefanski’s DNA was found near the body.
An admissions of fact, which was signed by Stefanski’s lawyer, said the RCMP lab that analyzed the swabs taken from inside the Audi also found two DNA profiles — Tatjana and Vitali Stefanski.
Fixsen testified Thursday that he initially responded to a call about a missing person around 8 a.m. on April 13, 2024. He told the court he pulled over to call the woman’s daughter, who had reported her missing, when a white Mercedes SUV pulled up next to him.
“He rolled his window down and he was frantic,” Fixsen said, noting it took a moment before he was able to piece together that the man, Jason Gaudreault, was the boyfriend of the missing woman.
Fixsen said he spent his entire shift working on the call, noting that the investigation included having a helicopter fly over the Lumby area to look for an Audi A4.
He told of searching a storage locker at the facility that neighbours Gaudreault’s property, where the woman was last seen.
Fixsen said the victim’s son had been given a key to one of the lockers from his father, Vitali Stefanski, so he went to “make sure Tatjana wasn’t inside.”
“No one was inside,” he said.
The court has heard that Tatjana and Vitali Stefanski divorced in 2021 and in 2024, the woman had been living with her children at Gaudreault’s home on the outskirts of Lumby, about 25 kilometres east of Vernon, B.C.
On Thursday, prosecutors showed the jury grainy surveillance video taken from the storage facility on April 13, 2024.
RCMP Const. David Hoekstra testified he retrieved the footage, then described how a vehicle parked at the top of the driveway around 8 a.m. He later described two figures that interacted near the vehicle.
The couple’s son told the jury this week that he was given a suitcase by his father that morning and was walking down the driveway when he passed his mother, who was heading toward the vehicle.
Tessmann told the jury on the first day of trial that they would hear that the two people got into the car from the passenger’s side and the vehicle left.
Fixsen testified earlier Thursday that a tip was received about an Audi parked along Mable Lake Road and when he found the vehicle and saw the bloodied seat, he called for backup, including police dogs.
The officer’s shift ended around 1 a.m. on April 14, 2024 and Tatjana Stefanski had not been located.
Tessmann told the jury members they will hear that Vitali Stefanski emerged shoeless from the forest later that day as police began towing the car and that he admitted to officers that he had killed his ex-wife.
The prosecutor said the victim had numerous stab wounds, including to her chest and ribs that led to her death.
The defence has not yet told the jury its theory of events.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2026.
By Brieanna Charlebois | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
