REGINA, Sask. — During a pair of 9-1-1 calls on the night of Aug. 27, 2017, Jenny McKay said several times she worried her husband Jason McKay was going to kill her.
“He’s going to break in here,” she told an operator on calls played in court. “He’s going to destroy the place. He’s going to kill me.”
She described calling 9-1-1 earlier that day to report an incident in which Jason allegedly shoved his daughter to the floor. Jenny said she intervened and police attended. She told the 9-1-1 operator during the later calls (one came immediately after the other) Jason was back at the house, drunk and pounding to be let in. She said if he was allowed inside, “he would probably kill me.”
A few days later, on Sept. 6, Jenny was found dead on her kitchen floor. Jason Daniel McKay, 47, is now on trial at Regina Court of Queen’s Bench for second-degree murder, accused of stabbing Jenny to death between Sept. 5 and 6, 2017.
The 9-1-1 calls were among a range of evidence court heard on Thursday about Jason’s alleged abuse of Jenny. Court also heard from two of Jenny’s former co-workers, who testified she confided in them that she was in an abusive marriage and was making efforts to leave.
“He hits me a lot and I’m f***g done,” Jenny said in a text to her then-supervisor Krista Schroeder. She also told Schroeder that between his drinking and misuse of medication, Jason had turned into a “monster.”
Schroeder said Jenny decided to rent a room in a house and that Schroeder went with her in late August to her Angus Street house to pick up her belongings. Schroeder said Jason appeared at the front door and drew back an arm as if to punch Jenny in the stomach, but stopped when he saw Schroeder and her husband. Schroeder said both Jenny and Jason had been drinking.
Court also heard from Jason’s now-16-year-old daughter, who described how Jason and Jenny’s relationship had worsened — in large part because of their drinking — and how her dad changed after he started on some medications.
The girl testified she saw her father shove her sister to the floor. She went on to tell the court about witnessing Jason hit Jenny hard in the abdomen on one occasion.
As has been the case throughout much of the trial to date, witnesses testified as part of a voir dire, or a trial within a trial intended to test which evidence should be admissible at the trial proper.
On Thursday morning, Crown prosecutor Adam Breker and defence lawyer Thomas Hynes argued on one of the voir dire issues, regarding utterances Jason was heard making to police immediately before and following his arrest for Jenny’s death.
Most of the comments having been captured on video played in court, Jason is heard repeatedly stating Jenny was dead and that he’d killed her.
Hynes pointed out the Crown bears the onus of proving such evidence should be allowed. He argued the evidence should not be allowed on the grounds that Jason — due to the effects of significant intoxication and medication — did not have an “operating mind” at the time he made the comments. As such, Hynes said his client didn’t have the ability “to know what he was saying and to know it could be used to his detriment.”
But Breker argued the bar is low in terms of the Crown’s onus on the operating mind issue. He said there is sufficient evidence to show Jason knew what he was saying at the time and that he was fully aware he was saying it in the presence of police officers, which Breker argued is all the Crown needs to prove.
Justice Michael Tochor is expected to rule Wednesday on whether the utterances will be allowed at the trial proper.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
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