Victim's parents recount witnessing son's fatal stabbing at Kevin Mantla trial

The parents of a man who was stabbed to death in Yellowknife testified Tuesday in the trial of the man accused of killing him.

Elvis Lafferty's mother, Mary Jane Lafferty, wept with her face in her hands shortly after beginning to testify. She said she was sound asleep in the Lanky Court apartment of her son's partner when the attack began, in the early morning hours of Sept. 28, 2015.

• Man who Kevin Mantla stayed with testifies about hours surrounding fatal attack
• Victim recounts stabbing attack at Kevin Mantla trial

Mary Jane Lafferty said the first thing she saw when she got up to see what was happening was a man pulling a knife out of her son's body and him falling to the ground.

Lafferty testified behind a screen blocking her view of Kevin Mantla, the man on trial for murder, attempted murder and aggravated assault in connection with her son's death and an attack on his partner, Mantla's ex-girlfriend.

"He was looking toward me with the knife in his right hand," she said. She ran by him and he slashed at her with the knife, cutting her in the forearm.

Mary Jane Lafferty said she locked herself in the bathroom. She said when she looked out she saw the man on top of her son's partner, who was lying on her side trying to protect her face with her hands. Lafferty said she the hooded man was stabbing the partner in the stomach.

"He turned around and looked at me and said, 'I'm going to kill you all," she said.

The partner's identity is protected by a publication ban on any information that could identify her children, who were also in the apartment that night.

Mary Jane Lafferty said she woke up her husband and they fled to a neighbour's apartment to call the police. She said she returned to the apartment after hearing screaming to see the assailant still on top of her son's girlfriend, stabbing her.

The prosecutor noted there were a number of differences between the account of that night given by Mary Jane Lafferty yesterday and the statement she gave police shortly after the attack. For example, Lafferty told police she and her husband were sleeping on a mattress in the living room, not the bedroom.

She told police she was in the washroom when she heard the loud noise, but in her testimony,she said it woke her from a sleep in the bedroom.

Elvis Lafferty's father, Archie, said he doesn't remember much from that evening because he had passed out after drinking.

The prosecutor read out a summary of an autopsy done on Lafferty. He had been stabbed a dozen times, including one deep wound that pierced his heart. Lafferty also had a lot of alcohol in his system, five times the legal limit for driving, according to the prosecutor.

On Tuesday, the court also saw closed circuit TV footage from a security camera in the stairwell of the Crestview Manor. On Monday, a man who lives in the apartment testified Mantla was staying with him the night and early morning of the attack.

The footage shows a man in a dark jacket leaving the apartment building at about 12:22 a.m. the morning of the attack. A second clip, from about 6:44 a.m. later that same morning, shows what appears to be the same man leaving the apartmentwearing a backpack and carrying a plastic bag in his hand.

The man who Lafferty was staying with said he came and went through the night. The man said he noticed the next morning a plastic bag he had in the bathroom for garbage was missing.