Marissa Shephard testifies she was out on escort call when victim was attacked
Shephard, 22, on trial for murder in Baylee Wylie's death says he was her friend
Marissa Shephard says she was out working as an escort or in another room when Baylee Wylie was stabbed in her Moncton house, and after she saw him wounded and dying, she was too afraid to call anyone for help.
Shephard, 22, of Moncton, is on trial for first-degree murder and arson with disregard for human life in the death of Wylie, 18. Firefighters found his body in Shephard's burned-out townhouse at 96 Sumac St. on Dec. 17, 2015.
Shephard was the first witness called Monday as the defence started its case in Court of Queen's Bench.
She said Wylie was a friend, and she had known him since they were children. Recently, they had begun working together, using the same phone as they earned money as escorts, and Wylie was staying at her house.
Blames Wylie for 'drama'
The first sign of trouble, she said, was on Dec. 16, after a drug-fuelled night at her house with Wylie, Devin Morningstar and Tyler Noel and a friend who did not stay.
Shephard said she came downstairs that day and saw Wylie and Noel "spooning" on the couch. Wylie later told her he had hooked up with Noel and had pictures on his phone, she said.
Wylie "really didn't mean to but he started a lot of drama," she said.
She said she told Wylie not to talk about the pictures, since it would anger Noel.
They all went upstairs to her bedroom to smoke weed, but at suppertime, Wylie was still talking about his sexual encounter with Noel.
"That's when the first fight happened," she said.
Noel attacked Wylie, and Morningstar also got involved. Shephard said she got angry and told them to stop. She also threw a broken bong in the general direction of the fighting and it hit Wylie in the head.
"Enough, shut up everybody," she said she told them.
2 customers asked for her
They stopped fighting and went downstairs to the living room.
Shephard, who had created an online ad for her escort business, said she then received a text from a man who said he would meet her on Sumac Street in 20 minutes.
She said she left the house to meet the man, and while she was out with him, a second man asked for her services.
She returned to the house to get more condoms and found Wylie, Noel and Morningstar smoking weed. They seemed fine, and she left again, she said.
'Gross' scene at home
Shephard said she wasn't sure what time she finished with her second customer, but when she returned to the house, she saw Wylie shirtless and smoking out of a bong. The smoke was coming from a wound in his lung, she said.
"It was really gross."
She heard Noel tell Wylie he was tripping and would be fine. Morningstar just stood there.
When Wylie slid off the couch onto the floor, Shephard said, she panicked and went upstairs. Noel joined her and said Wylie had threatened to call the police, so he couldn't be allowed to leave the house.
She said that she was crying and in shock and thought Wylie would die.
"Did you call anyone?" defence lawyer Alison Menard asked Shephard. She said she didn't. She said she had a house phone but it was downstairs, and she couldn't make calls on her cellphone.
Shephard said she stayed in her room, but she wasn't left alone for long. Noel and Morningstar took turns coming upstairs to tell her, "it was almost done."
Menard asked her about Morningstar's videotaped statements to police that Wylie had been beaten in the basement. Shephard said he must have been confused because that "fight" happened in her bedroom.
Denies stabbing hand
Menard also asked her about Morningstar's claim she had stabbed him, Morningstar, in the hand.
"I did not," she replied.
Shephard also said she did not hold Wylie down during the attack.
After she'd been upstairs for what seemed "forever," one of the men told her Wylie was dead.
Someone mentioned starting a fire, and she "didn't disagree," Shephard said.
Believed she couldn't escape
She estimated it was about 4 a.m. when she saw Wylie's body. Because she knew what had happened to him, she didn't dare run, believing "they weren't going to let me go."
Menard again asked Shephard if she was present when the decision was made to end Baylee Wylie's life.
She replied no, but "I didn't call anyone to stop it."
Menard asked her if she stabbed Wylie, and again she said no.
Shephard also said she did not witness Noel setting fires upstairs in her house. Morningstar called a friend to pick them up, and they all went to Morningstar's apartment, she said.
On the lam until March
Morningstar was arrested the day after the killing.
Shephard, who was not arrested until March 2016, testified about her time on the run in New Brunswick, saying she was in different locations without knowing the names of the people around her.
In a house with Noel in the middle of nowhere, she "smoked so much crack I thought I was dead and thought I was in hell," she said.
While staying for about a month with two other men, she overheard them talking about an older man who would buy her for sexual favours, she said.
Shephard hitch-hiked back to Moncton, where she went to a friend's house and called her stepfather and her lawyer.
She was arrested on March 1 off the Shediac Road.
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- A summary of the Crown's case in the 1st-degree murder and arson trial of Marissa Shephard
- Marissa Shephard at centre of competing affections as Baylee Wylie died, trial hears
Defence lawyer Gilles Lemieux told the jury earlier that Shephard had no motive to kill Wylie.
Wylie was murdered by Tyler Noel and Devin Morningstar, who were convicted based on evidence such as DNA and fingerprints, Lemieux said.
Noel, 20, and Morningstar, 20, were both sent to prison for the murder.
With files from Tori Weldon