April 13, 2022 • 14 hours ago • 4 minutes reading • 20 comments Robert Ashley Williams, left. and Dereck Szaflarski
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Robert Ashley Williams insisted he “did not put a knife in a fist”.
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Crown Assistant Attorney James Spangenberg made the motion Wednesday in Williams’ second-degree murder trial. “How would you describe it?” asked Williams who testified. “I took out a knife as a protection for myself just in case; I was going to be attacked,” he said. But Spangenberg suggested that Williams pull out the knife shortly before he and 27-year-old Derek Schafflerski clashed because “you were ready to stab Mr. Schafflerski and stab him as hard as you could to kill him as many times as you could. ». “No. Not at all,” Williams said. Szaflarski died after being stabbed five times, with a fatal wound to the heart. At the Williams trial, Spangenberg dissolved at Williams’s insistence, what happened on May 26, 2018 was self-defense.
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Williams, 39, who pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, was the last defense witness in the trial, which focused on how Szaflarski was fatally stabbed in a lobby on a busy Richmond Street as bars closed. Williams, under interrogation by defense attorney Chris Wagboe, told Supreme Court jurors what led to the knife and what he did next when he left quickly as Szaflarski died on a sidewalk. He told the jury he had gone to his brother earlier that night to clean a garage and take his motorcycle out of storage. Went home around 1:30 p.m. and was in contact with a friend named Lynn to go downtown to eat. He picked up Lynn – a dark-haired woman whose last name Williams did not know – and circled south on Richmond Street at about 2:30 p.m.
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Two people, one of them Szaflarski, ran out in front of his car. Williams said he shouted from his open window, “Be careful where you go. I almost ran you. You scared me…” Williams said Shaflarski shouted, “Be careful where you go.” They exchanged more words until he said he heard Szaflarski say “F— you, (n-word).” Williams, who is Black, said that comment was enough to pull his car out and get out. He saw Safarski coming towards him. He said he went to the sidewalk, took out a knife he had in his pocket and hit it to lock the blade in the open position. Szaflarski, he said, ran to him and grabbed his shirt with both hands, pushing him into the glass and pulling Williams’s shirt over his head. He said he was hit in the head more than once.
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He said he was “terrified” and started “rocking wildly” in Szaflarski when he was taken out of the lobby. Szaflarski set him free and walked behind the street. Williams said he got in his car and left quickly because he was scared and knew he needed medical attention for his bleeding left hand. However, instead of going to one of London’s three hospitals, he first left Lynn and then headed to the apartment of Julie Hudson, a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship, but insisted that she was not his girlfriend. This photo, presented in court as evidence, shows the scene at Richmond Row in central London, hours after a late-night collision in May 2018 that led to the death of Dereck Szaflarski with a knife. Hudson brought him clean clothes, put the bloody items in a bag, and soaked his injured hand before the two drove to St. Louis General Hospital. Thomas Elgin, where Williams said he could receive faster treatment.
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Sent back to St. Joseph’s Health Care in London for surgery and recovered from heavy medication at Hudson’s home. He said he did not know he was wanted until three days later, when he saw a report and turned himself in to police. Spangenberg disputed much of what Williams said. Why, he asked, did Williams have to shout out the pedestrian window to get started? “They ran out in front of my vehicle and I wanted to inform them to be careful,” he said. “As a public service so they don’t do it in the future?” asked the Crown. “Just to let them know,” he said. Spangenberg said, seeing that Williams was sober and big, why he did not leave. “What good is it if you have a fight with a drunk at Richmond Row at 2:30 in the morning?” asked.
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He wondered how Williams said he just wanted to “sing” Szaflarski from the sidewalk. He suggested Williams attack with the knife first, given how much of Szaflarski’s blood was found in the vestibule. Williams said he saw no blood, but a surveillance video showed Saflarski bleeding profusely as he crossed the street before collapsing. Spangenberg wondered why Williams rushed away instead of calling 911 or calling for help if it was an attack. And, he could not understand, if Williams was so seriously injured, why would he leave his partner, ask Hudson for help, and drive 30 minutes to St. Thomas for treatment. The trial returns on Tuesday for the final arguments and instructions of Judge Michael McArthur. [email protected] twitter.com/JaneatLFPress
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