PENTICTON — After five weeks of listening to the testimony of others, John Ike Koopmans took the witness stand himself. The 51-year-old Princeton man is accused of shooting and killing Robert Keith Wharton and Rosemary Fox.
Koopmans said he isn’t responsible for the crimes. Defense counsel suggested the murders might have been drug related.
In Koopmans’ testimony, the jury heard the lengths Wharton and Fox apparently went to to find cash for drugs.
The shooting happened in Wharton’s home near Princeton two years ago.
Koopmans said he was on his way to the home but he was drunk and didn’t make made it right away. By the time he got there, he noticed a heavy police presence. He said he thought the RCMP were there for a drug bust, so he slept in the camper behind the home, where officers found him the next day.
“I was very scared he (a police officer) was yelling at me not to move with a gun pointed directly at my head…I peed my pants,” said Koopmans as he recalled the moments leading up to his arrest.
His clothing was tested for DNA; both his blood and Wharton’s blood were found.
Koopmans offered this explanation: about 10 days before the shootings, Koopmans said he and Wharton were sorting through lumber, when Wharton got a massive splinter that caused him to bleed onto Koopmans’ clothing.
Several days after that incident, Koopmans testified he injured himself with a sledge hammer, explaining why his blood was also found on his jacket and jeans.
The suspected murder weapon is a .357 magnum handgun, the same kind Koopmans once owned, but he insisted he destroyed that years ago. He told police where to find the gun’s remains. Crown counsel Frank Dubenski questioned this during cross-examination.
“You know darn well there’s no .357 cut up there and you’re sending the police on a goose chase!”
Koopmans denied it.
Dubenski also criticized Koopmans’ friendship with Wharton.
Koopmans called the allegations “ridiculous.”
Cross-examination is expected to continue Monday.
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