WARNING: This story contains graphic details of violence.
A teacher and three of her former high school students say there were no warning signs before a fatal stabbing unfolded in their Edmonton-area classroom on the morning of March 15, 2021.
Witnesses began testifying this week at the first-degree murder trial of Dylan Pountney, charged in the killing of his 17-year-old classmate, Jennifer Winkler. Pountney, now 22, was 19 at the time.
The two were students at Christ the King School, a Catholic Grade 9 to 12 school in Leduc, just south of Edmonton.
The gallery in Wetaskiwin’s Court of King’s Bench was packed with many of Winkler’s friends and family members as witnesses gave evidence.
The teacher and students, who can’t be named due to a publication ban, all identified Pountney as the attacker. They testified that he rushed at Winkler while she sat at her desk during a mid-morning break in their social studies lesson.
At the time, COVID-19 precautions to limit students’ exposure to each other meant the teens were spending the entire morning in one classroom for a three-hour block. The teacher told the court on Tuesday that Winkler sat in front of Pountney in class, but she didn’t see them speak the previous week, nor did she remember them interacting on the day in question.
That Monday morning, the class was discussing the issue of genocide. The teacher said it seemed like a normal day.
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“We did have discussion with everybody and Dylan put up his hand, which was out of the ordinary,” she said.
“He asked why Hitler was viewed as the worst person or that the Holocaust was the worst genocide … versus Stalin, who had done something very similar.”
The teacher told the court that she called a break shortly before 10 a.m., and Pountney made some comments to her about the weather before leaving the room.
Just minutes later, the teacher said a sudden movement in the doorway caught her eye, and she looked up to see the accused stabbing Winkler.
‘We were all shocked’
People in the courtroom wiped tears from their eyes as the teacher described the sudden chaos.
“When I did realize what was happening, I tried to step forward but I was behind [my] desk. Then I started yelling, ‘What are you doing?’ And to stop,” she testified.
“He didn’t stop when she put her hands up. He didn’t stop when I started yelling or screaming. He just kept going.”
The teacher said she didn’t recall Pountney saying anything, but told the court that he swung a knife at Winkler “many” times.
“Once he ran out of the room, I remember looking at the kids to my right, and they were all just looking at me and we were all shocked.”
Three of those students testified Wednesday, with two saying they remember Pountney speaking, telling Winkler to “reply” or seeming like he wanted her to say something.
“He kind of came up from behind her. I thought he was hugging her or something, and then I just saw his arms swinging up and down,” one former student said.
“She got up really quickly and then she stumbled and fell to the floor not too far from the door. … I’m not sure what was going through my mind because of the state of shock I was in.”
All three students said they saw the stabbing, but they didn’t have a clear memory of all the details.
Pountney’s defence lawyer, Derek Anderson, questioned them about how much they can remember from that day more than three years ago, and how certain they are about some of what they described in court.
Details of the emergency response
School hallway surveillance video played in court shows a person identified as Pountney leaving the classroom around the time the teacher said she called for a break. The video then shows him going into a bathroom before returning to the classroom hallway, briefly walking in a circle near the door, and entering the class.
After a few moments, he appears again, running from the room. A different camera outside the school captured him running away, into a field.
The classroom teacher said she shut her door and called 911.
Advanced care paramedic Emily Montgomery told the court Tuesday that she and her partner arrived at the scene around 10:15 a.m., with little information about what was going on. She said they ran through school hallways full of RCMP officers with weapons drawn, still looking for a suspect.
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Montgomery said when she found Winkler, the girl had visibly lost so much blood that she immediately sent a message asking for STARS air ambulance transport.
“Her pulse was fast but very weak. She was now in irreversible shock,” Montgomery said.
“It requires extremely aggressive treatment to try to bring them out — their body is trying to shut down.”
STARS arrived at about 10:40 a.m. and airlifted Winkler to an Edmonton hospital, but she died.
Her death shook Leduc and the surrounding communities. In the days that followed, her friends and family set up a memorial for her at a nearby town community centre and organized a vigil in her honour.
The judge-alone trial is scheduled to run until July 26. The defence’s case has yet to be presented.