'Do not admit guilt,' Calgary cabbie tells himself in video after running over teenager
Stanislaw Maguder's mutterings after the incident were caught on his taxi's dashcam
In the moments after he killed a teenage girl by running over her as she lay in the middle of the road, Calgary cab driver Stanislaw Maguder told himself not to admit guilt.
His post-incident mutterings were recorded by a video camera inside his Associated Cab and translated on Wednesday by a Polish interpreter.
"Why did I not brake? Why did I not brake?" Maguder said. "Do not admit guilt. Do not admit guilt."
Tyla Chipaway was lying in the middle of 16th Avenue at 3:30 a.m. on March 18, 2015, when Maguder drove over her.
"You lost everything. You should have stopped, they would not do anything to you," he said.
The charge faced by Maguder, 70, is hit and run knowing a death occurred. His trial began Monday.
Maguder admitted to killing Chipaway when he drove over her. But his lawyer, Balfour Der, says the issue at trial will be intent.
After the interpreter was finished testifying, prosecutor Elaine Ahn rested the Crown's case and Der called Maguder to testify in his own defence.
He told the judge that he felt it was impossible it was a person he had hit, and that he thought of going back to the scene but his body "wouldn't allow it."
'Maybe it could be a person'
"Something bumped under my car," said Maguder. "My first thoughts were maybe it was something lost from someone's car."
"In my head, started to think that it maybe it could be a person."
After he struck Chipaway, Maguder got his taxi washed at a car wash and went home.
Const. Mark Enright from the Calgary police traffic unit testified on Monday that Maguder sped in 11 different zones, ran nine stop signs, four red lights and made one unsafe lane change between the location where he killed Chipaway and the car wash.
The dashcam video released by Judge Sean Dunnigan shows Chipaway lying in the middle of the road as the cab that is about to kill her approaches.
There are two videos with different angles: one that points outside the cab at the roadway and captures the whole incident: and one angled inside that shows Maguder's reaction.
At the time of her death, Chipaway had a blood alcohol level of 0.21, according to an agreed statement of facts. It is not known why she was lying down in the middle of the major roadway.
The trial is set to wrap up on Friday.