CALGARY – Sheena Cuthill told court Friday there was never any discussion of hurting or killing the father of her child.
Cuthill is testifying in her own defence in the Ryan Lane murder trial.
Cuthill, her husband Tim Rempel and his brother Will Rempel are all accused of the first-degree murder of Lane.
She told court there was a plan, but not to harm Lane.
“It was to meet with Ryan and kind of scare him away… convincing him to walk away,” she testified.
The 30-year-old told the jury she met Lane the summer of 2006. He was a friend of her brother’s and she bought marijuana off of him.
The following March, she found out she was pregnant with Lane’s child.
The little girl was born Nov. 2007 but, just three months later, Cuthill said they broke up.
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Cuthill testified Lane wanted to go out, was using drugs and that “he didn’t seem like he wanted to step up and spend time with (their daughter),” so they ended their relationship.
Cuthill said despite Lane paying her child support after the breakup, she said she struggled financially.
She testified: “I ended up being homeless for a little bit” in 2008 and lived with her daughter in a camper for about a month.
Eventually she found a place through Calgary Housing and said Lane would visit their daughter occasionally. However, she testified that ended and they eventually went two to three years with no contact.
Then, in Sept. 2010, Cuthill said she met Tim Rempel at a bar.
By Oct. 2011, Cuthill was five months pregnant with Tim’s child and the two were married.
Cuthill said, by then, her daughter knew Tim Rempel as dad and they discussed him adopting the child.
“I didn’t take his name [Rempel] because [her daughter] didn’t have his name and didn’t want [her daughter] to feel left out.”
“It was my idea to go for custody,” Cuthill testified.
She said she knew Lane had to be given notice of the court proceedings once she filed for temporary guardianship.
She told court she was worried about losing custody to Lane.
Cuthill: “I was nervous I didn’t know what to expect… out of mediation.”
“He was upsetting me a lot,” Cuthill said of Lane.
Her defence lawyer Alain Hepner is taking her through the dozens of texts that were presented to the jury by the prosecution earlier in the trial.
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