Witness saw suspect’s car along remote road, B.C. murder trial hears

An aerial view of a forest service road is seen on the east side of Mabel Lake near Lumby, B.C., in this photograph taken with a drone on Monday, May 13, 2024. Tatjana Stefanski, 44, was found dead in the Mabel Lake area on April 14 after disappearing a day earlier. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

A woman who was visiting a campsite near Mable Lake, B.C., on April 13, 2024, has told a murder trial of the “peculiar” sight of a black Audi 25 kilometres down a poorly maintained forest road.

Karen Derry told the jury at Vitali Stefanski’s second-degree murder trial in Kamloops that she and her husband slowed as they drove past the vehicle, which the court has heard was owned by Stefanski, but didn’t stop because no one was around.

Stefanski has pleaded not guilty to murdering his ex-wife, Tatjana Stefanski, whose body was found six kilometres away.

Derry testified she had an exchange on Facebook with Tatjana’s Stefanski’s boyfriend, Jason Gaudreault, about spotting the vehicle after he posted that she had disappeared and appealed for information or sightings of the car.

The court has heard 44-year-old Tatjana Stefanski was found stabbed to death a day after Derry spotted the car.

Crown lawyer Rigel Tessmann told the B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday that a bent and bloodied knife that carried both Tatjana and Vitali Stefanski’s DNA was found near the body.

Tessmann told the jury Vitali Stefanski emerged shoeless from the forest and admitted to police that he had killed his ex-wife, who he said suffered 21 “sharp force wounds” to her legs, arms and hands as well as seven stab wounds to her chest and ribs that injured her heart and lungs and led to her death.

The defence has not yet told the jury its theory of events.

This report by Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press, was first published May 28, 2026.