A statement Dylan Pountney gave to police following the stabbing death of Jennifer Winkler is admissible evidence in his first-degree murder trial.
Justice Eric F. Macklin in Court of King’s Bench of Alberta ruled Monday in Wetaskiwin that answers Pountney gave to the RCMP within hours of Winkler’s death on March 15, 2021, are part of the trial record.
Accused describes stabbing
On Wetaskiwin RCMP video, Pountney admitted to stabbing Winkler earlier that day in the social studies classroom at Christ the King High School in Leduc where he and the 17-year-old victim were both students.
Citing a motive of revenge against Winkler’s father, Pountney — who was 19 at the time of the killing — said he had been thinking about killing Winkler for a couple of days and then trying to take hostages, but “that didn’t work out.” He blamed Winkler’s father for the death of his mother, who died of cancer in 2016.
Pountney described stabbing Winkler in her seat where she was looking at her phone while on break, using a purple knife he brought from his home kitchen and concealed in his pants.
“I just remember doing it twice, like, boom, and then getting her in the neck,” Pountney said.
“And then, all of a sudden, she was by the front door, and I was like, ‘What the hell?’ … I don’t know how she got up from her seat because, like, I had the knife in her neck when she was sitting down,” he said.
As she dropped to the floor, he saw “a bit of blood come out.”
He said he couldn’t remember the whole thing, frame by frame.
“I’d rather probably not remember that,” he said.
He hid in some trees and then noticed a parked car with someone in it.
“I just opened the door and said, you know, ‘Get out of your car, bitch!’ or something,” Pountney recalled in the statement.
Then he realized it wasn’t a woman but a man in the car, smoking.
“He was just mad, really mad. I was like, ‘Oh, boy. What did I just do?’ So I just grabbed his cigarettes and kind of ran, and that’s when he kind of swerved to hit me,” Pountney recalled.
He expressed surprise that officers were gentle with him when a police dog found him hiding under someone’s deck blocks away.
Pountney acknowledged to the officer that he knew what he was doing would kill Winkler and that it was his intention.
“I knew she didn’t deserve that. She, as a person, didn’t deserve to die,” he told the officer.
“In all honesty, because I felt like I can’t take back what I’ve done, and I regret it,” Pountney said on the video.
Psychotic but knew what he was saying
Pountney told police he was prescribed escitalopram for PTSD, but that he’d stopped taking it two weeks previously because it would “mess up his serotonin.”
He also said he had, in the past, done meth, the psychedelic DMT, marijuana, and cocaine, and that he sometimes hears the thoughts of people who are recently deceased giving him advice or directions.
He claimed to have been influenced “by a Satan kind of thing” and that he was possessed by “a blood cult thing on YouTube.”
Pountney said people were threatening him with guns and planning to break his legs.
His defence lawyer, Derek Anderson, argued Pountney’s will to choose whether to provide the statement was overborne by his lack of an operating mind.
However, Macklin said the “operating mind test” requires that the accused possess a limited degree of cognitive ability to understand what he or she is saying and to comprehend that the evidence may be used in proceedings against the accused.
Macklin said, “No inquiry is necessary as to whether the accused is capable of making a good or wise choice or one that is in his or her interest.”
The justice noted some things the accused said were “incongruous or bizarre” — Pountney asking for a meal of “a single grain of rice with no salt or sugar.” (He did eat a hamburger.)
Among his statements, Pountney said he wanted to die by suicide by cop, wanted to inflict pain on Winkler and then take hostages and demand things from the government like free dental work, and wanted to burn $100,000 outside the school.
Pountney also described information he said was given about improprieties allegedly committed against his mother and others by Winkler’s father and that the elder Winkler “stole” magic cards belonging to him.
“While some of his statements may be considered delusional, the answers themselves were clear and coherent,” Macklin said.
Forensic psychologist Marc Nesca was originally retained in relation to a possible defence plea of not being criminally responsible.
Nesca concluded Pountney was “clearly psychotic” during the police interview and during the time of the stabbing, and that his evident mental health issues predating the stabbing included diagnoses of paranoia, command hallucinations and delusional beliefs.
“His psychosis, however, did not prevent him from appreciating the nature of his actions, their wrongfulness and the potential range of consequences he faced as a result of his actions,” Macklin said.
The justice noted Pountney appeared polite and respectful, acknowledging his actions and their wrongfulness, and expressing regret and the potential consequences he faces.
Macklin said Nesca gave some evidence relating to apparent “malingering and symptom amplification.”
He said he had no doubt Pountney did suffer from psychosis at the time of his police statement.
“However, even if the delusions described by him during the interview were not exaggerated, he still exhibited a purpose of awareness of his statements, their effect and their possible use,” Macklin said.
“Whatever delusions he may have been experiencing did not interfere with or negatively impact his understanding that he did not have to speak to the police and that whatever he said may be used against him. He made a meaningful choice to speak to the police, knowing that he was not required to answer questions and that anything he did say could be used in evidence against him.”
Kathryn Pountney testified she had often taken care of her grandson when he was growing up, saying she knew him to be a happy person who was angry from his parents’ breakup when he was about 13, but who showed no sign of the tragedy to follow when she brought him a double-double coffee he requested and took him to school on March 15, 2021.