The witness said she took a cab from Kowalchuk’s Douglasdale home before he was beaten to death on Feb. 13, 2022
A crucial Crown witness in the trial of three men charged with murdering Calgary resident Chad Kowalchuk feared for her own life, court heard Monday.
The woman, who can’t be identified because of a publication ban on her daughter’s name, who some believed had been molested by Kowalchuk, said she took part in a discussion to rob the deceased.
But the witness said she took a cab from Kowalchuk’s Douglasdale home before he was beaten to death on Feb. 13, 2022.
She told Crown prosecutor Vicki Faulkner she, Justin Urban and accused killer Ronald Abraham had a discussion in Kowalchuk’s basement about robbing the victim of a safe he kept in his room.
The woman said she didn’t know what was in the safe, which Kowalchuk kept in his heavily secured master bedroom, but believed it was cash.
She testified she was consuming methamphetamine around the time of Kowalchuk’s killing and the days which followed and agreed with defence counsel Dale Fedorchuk, who acts for Abraham, that may have impacted her memory of events.
But she did say she feared for her safety, a concern she still holds.
“Did you ever have concerns for your safety?” Faulkner asked.
“Yes … because Justin (Urban) told me those guys wanted to kill me,” she said.
Abraham, Justin Boucher and Robert Sims each face a charge of first-degree murder in connection with Kowalchuk’s killing.
But the woman made no mention of allegations the victim was a pedophile, but suggested he was “creepy.”
She said she left Kowalchuk’s residence, where she was staying along with Urban at the time, shortly before 5 p.m. and right after Abraham and Urban had left.
As she was driven away in a taxi, she saw those two with two other unidentified men in a car three or four houses from Kowalchuk’s home.
Later, at Abraham’s residence, she said she asked them about stealing Kowalchuk’s safe while he was home in his bedroom.
“I asked them how they managed to get the safe out of Chad’s room without him putting up a fight,” she said.
“It was pretty easy, just a few punches,” she said Urban replied.
Under cross-examination the woman admitted to Fedorchuk she believed she would be going to jail for Kowalchuk’s killing but has never been charged with an offence.
Her questioning by defence lawyers will continue Tuesday afternoon.
