The only eye witness to an alleged murder on Roaches Line four years ago took the stand at Supreme Court in St. John’s yesterday.
Kevin Shaw was one of several men from Nunavut in a cabin at Hillside Cottages on June 21st, 2021.
They were crew on a fishing vessel that had just docked in Bay Roberts after a dry month at sea.
The plan was to rent cabins and pick up beer, pot and cocaine to celebrate their return to dry land, and watch the Habs playoff game.
But court has been told the victim, 26-year-old Bernard Otuk, got too drunk, high, emotional and aggressive, and was restrained by the accused, 30-year-old Patrick Sulurayok.
The eye witness said the accused had the victim in a chokehold for 5 to 10 minutes, trying to stop and calm him down.
“I didn’t think it was serious. Just a quick wrestle. It was almost like when we were kids,” he said.
But he was suddenly shocked to see the accused doing CPR on the victim, yelling, “What the F—!”
Otuk died from a loss of blood flow to the brain, brought on by the chokehold from Sulurayok.
Whether it crossed the line from self-defence to murder will be for the jury to decide.