The manslaughter trial for Rylan Twigg and Danny Scout continued in Lethbridge court on Tuesday.
The pair are charged in the 2017 death of Ken First Rider.
Police were called to a North Lethbridge home for an unresponsive man, who was later identified as First Rider. He was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy ruled his death as homicide.
Lethbridge Police Service Const. Anthony Tupper was on the stand Tuesday for another day of cross examination.
Tupper is the officer in the police interview video and a re-enactment video with Twigg that was played for the court.
In the interview, Twigg tells the officer he beat up First Rider after an alcohol-induced argument escalated. In the video, he tells the officer he punched First Rider. Then, the officer asks if he stomped on First Rider and Twigg answered yes.
During cross examination, defence counsel Ingrid Hess, who’s representing Twigg, said the officer was the one who brought up stomping, that he introduced that to the conversation. Tupper agreed that he was the one who brought it up, not Twigg. He said the information was given to him in an interview package — where the information had been gathered by police from someone else at the house during the incident.
Hess pointed to a portion of the video where the officer then asks again about stomping on First Rider and Twigg says he didn’t.
Hess also questioned the officer about Twigg’s cognitive abilities during the interview. She said it was obvious the accused was showing he had challenges, using the fact he kept asking for his mom during the interview as an example. The officer said he was unaware of any cognitive deficits at the time and was not concerned about it.
The videotaped interview is part of a voir dire, which is a trial within a trial, to determine the admissibility of evidence. The judge, Justice Johnna C. Kubik, will rule on whether she will consider the video as evidence in the trial.
Testimony will continue Wednesday with the trial set to run for another four weeks.
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