Port Alberni RCMP Const. Logan Krebs was just starting his night shift on Aug. 29, 2021, when he responded to a report: “Shots fired, male with injuries.”
On his way to the call, Krebs saw a distraught woman standing at the corner of Argyle Street and 18th Avenue holding a cellphone.
“I got out of my car and had her come towards me. She was hysterical, screaming, crying, sobbing, hyperventilating. I had a lot of difficulty talking to her because she was extremely agitated,” Krebs testified Friday at Samantha Dittmer’s trial for second-degree murder in the death of her son Jesse McPhee.
The Crown is alleging that Dittmer shot McPhee, 37, with a hunting rifle at point-blank range, killing him almost instantly.
She has pleaded not guilty to the crime.
The police officer tried to get the woman, now identified as McPhee’s partner, Brandy Kazakoff, to calm down and tell him what happened.
“I eventually told her to take some breaths and calm down so that she could speak, actually form a sentence and say words to me. And then she told me … that Samantha Dittmer had shot Jesse McPhee in the downstairs kitchen and that she believed Dittmer had gone upstairs.”
Krebs testified that Kazakoff told him she was outside knitting and then heard a bang. She entered the suite and saw McPhee on the ground and Dittmer holding what she believed to be a shotgun. Dittmer told her to call 911, then walked upstairs.
Krebs relayed that information to another RCMP officer, then placed Kazakoff in the back of his police car and went to Dittmer’s residence on 18th Avenue on foot.
“I grabbed the carbine, it’s our assault-style rifle with the scope, the long gun, from the car and I headed over to the house,” he said.
Dittmer had already been arrested and was in the back seat of an RCMP truck, said Krebs.
He testified that he went into the house through the front door and did a quick visual scan of the upstairs rooms to make sure no one else was armed or injured. Then he went into the kitchen, where he saw McPhee lying dead on the floor.
“There was a lot of blood,” he recalled. “He had a large wound to his abdomen or chest area.”
Krebs testified that he walked back to his police car and put his carbine back in the trunk. He asked Kazakoff to move into the front passenger seat and took a statement from her.
“She was still upset. However, she was able to relay the events of the day fairly clearly to me, answer my questions, still obviously upset, crying a little bit, emotional, but clear and able to provide a reasonable statement,” Krebs testified.
Kazakoff appeared sober. She had no difficulty walking. Her speech was clear and Krebs did not detect any odour of alcohol or marijuana, he testified.
After she gave her statement, Krebs let Kazakoff out of the police cruiser. She joined some of her friends who were on the street.
“There were a lot of people, neighbours, everybody was out. She was talking to a friend and I left the scene,” said Krebs.
Later, Krebs gave his notes to the detectives investigating the homicide.
During cross-examination, Krebs told defence lawyer Brian Coleman that his notes said: “Mother shot him with a shotgun.”
Kazakoff was not present when the shot occurred, Krebs agreed. She had come upon the scene.
“So her account of what might have happened was kind of a circumstantial account,” Coleman suggested.
“That’s correct,” said Krebs.
The trial will resume Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court in Port Alberni.
