After a week of Crown witnesses testifying what they saw, the accused in a Saskatoon homicide case testified Friday as to what he says led to the death of David Merasty.
David Merasty was killed in June 2016. (Saskatoon Police Service)
Lajray Gordon is on trial at the Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatoon, charged with second-degree murder in Merasty's death in June 2016.
"I know I injured him, but I had no idea he died," Gordon said under questioning by his lawyer, Brian Pfefferle.
Gordon said he was with two female friends that day.
They had smoked crystal meth that morning and then walked to the Friendship Inn for lunch, intending to take in the sunny day at the river. They stopped outside a house on Avenue E S to see a friend who had recently moved into the neighbourhood.
Gordon said that's when Merasty walked by. One of the women, Coquilynn Frenchman, asked Merasty for a cigarette.
"I think he got offended when Frenchman called him a c--t and we laughed," he said.
Lajray Gordon captured on tape fleeing the crime scene. (Saskatoon Police Service)
This triggered an exchange of profanities and racial slurs — Gordon is Jamaican — that escalated into the men grappling and coming to blows.
Merasty was larger and heavier, and Gordon said he ended up on the bottom getting choked.
"I feared for my life. That's when I stabbed him," he said.
That caused Merasty to let go. Gordon ran off, throwing away his switchblade knife when he got home.
He turned himself in to police five months later.
Prosecutor Cory Bliss will cross-examine Gordon on Monday.
