Lucy Li was on the stand on Monday at her joint murder trial with her husband Oliver Karafa.
Li testified that she didn’t even know anybody had been shot until hours after the killing.
Li also told a story of running from what she feared was the victim’s criminal gang.
A video presented as evidence shows Li on the day of the killing as she says she was rushed by her husband from their home in Toronto to the shooting scene in Stoney Creek then back to Toronto and eventually to Montreal and a flight to Europe.
Li and Karafa are charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Tyler Pratt and attempted murder in the shooting of Jordyn Romano in Stoney Creek in February 2021.
Li says Karafa and Pratt were in Stoney Creek on business planning a marijuana grow op.
She said she was on the other side of the building at the time of the shooting, a football field away, when she heard “loud popping noises.”
“It didn’t register to me that there could have been gunshots,” says Li.
She said she “never saw a gun” on the day of the shooting.
READ MORE: Lucy Li takes the stand in Stoney Creek murder trial
Li did not describe seeing the victim, Pratt, after the shooting but said she saw Jordyn Romano “spinning and she’s moving her hands around. I’m not sure but she was twisting her whole upper body.”
Romano was shot in the heart but survived.
As they headed back to Toronto Li says Karafa was “still yelling at me and I’m still asking him what happened.”
Li told the court, “He said it was him or me. He’s saying he saved my life because they wanted to kill us. He’s saying Tyler’s gang will come after us.”
Li says she told her mother and sisters to leave their home in the middle of the night out of fear of retaliation by Tyler’s gang.
Li eventually saw an online news story saying someone had been killed in Stoney Creek.
She and Karafa spent the night going to Montreal then flew to Europe, where Karafa’s relatives live.
Karafa and Li were eventually extradited back to Canada.
She testified they spent weeks being hidden in various houses in Hungary by people she thought were police who were supposed to be helping them get the charges dropped in Canada, and taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from family members.
But the charges were not dropped and she said she eventually wanted to come back to Canada “to deal with everything.”
READ MORE: Crown begins its case in Oliver Karafa and Lucy Li murder trial