In an RCMP interrogation video shown to a Kelowna courtroom on Monday, Noah Vaten admits to killing Esa Carriere on Canada Day in 2018 but says he doesn’t remember it.
“I killed Esa. I admit to it,” he says.
The officer responded by asking how he killed the victim.
“I have no recollection, OK? I’m telling you the truth about that. I do not remember,” he says.
Throughout the video, which was recorded after Vaten was arrested in January 2019, Vaten was adamant that he doesn’t remember the key part of the night when the stabbing happened.
He’s heard recapping much of the early part of the day’s festivities to an officer, but says he doesn’t remember what happened after doing cocaine.
His next memory is kicking the windows of the Rutland community policing office because he knew he needed help, he says.
He was then thrown in the drunk tank, and court has previously heard that officers searched his bag.
Vaten had a small knife on him at the time, and in the police video, he questions why officers let him keep it if it was the murder weapon.
“Wouldn’t it have been covered in blood?” he asks.
During the interrogation, Vaten says that most of what he knows from that night is from what other people told him.
He repeatedly asks police for evidence that he killed Carriere, saying that he doesn’t see it in himself.
“Basically last night I was told I killed somebody, by you guys, the police,” he said. “There has to be some sort of reason the police have to believe that.”
“If I was the person who did it, I can do my time for it and recover from it.”
Vaten also tells the officer that he’s worried he might be the “fall boy” and somebody else could be setting him up.
Later in the interview, the officer tells Vaten that another person told RCMP that Carriere had hit Vaten and Vaten had returned the punch.
Vaten breaks down into tears and starts crying.
He says he doesn’t remember, but he believes it.
However, Vaten has since pleaded not guilty to manslaughter.
Four people were charged in Carriere’s death, and a person who was a youth at the time of the incident has since pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of assault.
Nathan Truant is also on trial with Vaten.
Another person who was a youth at the time of the death is awaiting trial.