A man charged with killing Calgary mother Maryam Rashidi in a gas-and-dash hit-and-run confessed to the crime in an interview with a homicide detective.
The interview with Joshua Mitchell took place at Calgary Police Headquarters on June 10, 2015 with Det. Rey Bangloy and was played for the jury on Wednesday in his second-degree murder trial.
Mitchell told the detective he had stolen a Ford F-350 from a home in Airdrie.
“Smaller cities are easier to hit than big ones,” Mitchell said in the taped interview.
He explained the doors were unlocked, the keys in the ignition, and that was the start of a week-and-a-half of driving that truck, before the fatal incident.
Mitchell told the officer he had seen a news report that showed a picture of “a pair of shoes just laying on the road.”
“How did that make you feel?” Bangloy asked.
“Sad,” Mitchell answered.
READ MORE: Witnesses to fatal Calgary gas-and-dash testify on Day 2 of Joshua Mitchell trial
He went on to explain he met up with some girls in Turner Valley and spent several days camping in the area. He said he was back in the city on June 7, 2015 and looking to fill up the truck.
He said he was trying to do a “gas and go” at the Centex on 16 Avenue N.W., and had pulled away when the passenger in the truck told him a woman was following them.
Mitchell said his initial thought was to “drive faster” and also contemplated spraying her with bear spray.
“Like, how long do you think the whole incident is to — from when you start taking off till…you guys take off and she’s under your truck and gone?” Bangloy asked.
“Like five minutes,” he said. “At one point she was jumping on the hood.”
“What the hell are you thinking at this point?” Bangloy asked.
“This b—h is nuts,” Mitchell answered, laughing.
Mitchell said Rashidi jumped on the hood of the truck three times.
“One time she jumped on the hood. I jerked forward,” he explained, “she grabs on and then I speed forward.
“And eventually she goes under?” Bangloy inquired.
“Yeah, I think so. Yeah.”
The detective asked Mitchell how fast he was driving when Rashidi fell off.
“Almost 100 (km/h),” he said, but told the officer he sped up to 160 km/h as he fled the scene. It was only later in residential neighbourhoods that he slowed down, he said.
READ MORE: ‘She was the best thing I had’: Husband mourns hit-and-run victim
Mitchell said following the incident he contemplated turning himself in, or leaving the city.
He was eventually arrested at a home in northwest Calgary on June 9, 2015.
The detective told Mitchell he was facing serious jail time.
At the end of the interview, Bangloy suggests, “one thing that might help the family, might help you as well, from my experience is an apology letter. Are you willing to put pen to paper and write something to the family?”
On the video, Mitchell can be seen writing a letter, and later signing it and giving it to the officer.
The letter, read in court on Wednesday, stated:
“I’m really sorry this had to happen to your family.
It shouldn’t have happened. We tried to avoid injury to anyone. I feel so bad that this happened. I’ve never hurt anyone physically in my life, this is the first.
I can’t live with myself knowing what I’ve done to your family.”
Earlier in the trial the jury heard Rashidi was run over with both the front and rear tires of a truck, and died two days later in hospital.
She was working as a gas attendant at the northwest Centex gas station, after she and her husband were laid off as engineers working in the oil and gas sector.
The Crown’s theory is Mitchell went to the gas station with the specific intent to steal gas, and Rashidi tried to “right a wrong” by attempting to stop the truck from leaving without paying.
The prosecution alleges Mitchell accelerated and drove over Rashidi.
The trial, which started Monday, is scheduled for two weeks.
Comments