'Going to be alone': Daughter tells of B.C. murder suspect's message as mom vanished

The property, bottom left, where Tatjana Stefanski, 44, was last seen on April 13, 2024, is seen in a photograph taken with a drone, in Lumby, B.C., on Monday, May 13, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

KAMLOOPS — The daughter of murder suspect Vitali Stefanski says he left her a Russian voice message saying her mother had “made life hell,” the day she went missing from her home in British Columbia’s Interior.

A recording of the Whatsapp message has been played in court at Stefanki’s murder trial in Kamloops, B.C., with daughter Selina Martin translating and saying he told her she and her younger brother were “going to be alone” and they should “hang onto each other tight, like stay together.”

A B.C. Supreme Court jury has heard that 44-year-old Tatjana Stefanski was found stabbed to death on April 14, 2024, a day after the voicemail.

Eighteen-year-old Martin, who goes by her mother’s maiden name instead of her legal surname of Stefanski, says her father called her endearing names and wasn’t speaking normally, telling her he wanted to see her but it “hadn’t worked out.”

Martin did not look at her father as he watched her in court, even as she walked past the Plexiglass defendant’s box.

Vitali Stefanski has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the death of his ex-wife.

The court has heard that Martin lived with her mother, brother, Tatjana Stefanski’s boyfriend Jason Gaudreault, and his son, in the village of Lumby, about 25 kilometres east of Vernon.

Martin told the court on Wednesday that on the day of the disappearance, she had missed a call from her mother, who texted her saying her father was “leaving.”

She said she later got a call from Gaudreault, who told her that both her parents had disappeared.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” she said. “I didn’t think she would willingly do that. It was very out of character.”

Martin said that after she hung up with Gaudreault, she called police.

Crown lawyer Rigel Tessmann told the court Tuesday that Tatjana Stefanski’s body was located six kilometres from where Vitali Stefanski’s abandoned black Audi was found on a forest road. A bent and bloodied knife that carried both their DNA was found near the body, Tessmann said.

Tessmann told the jury Vitali Stefanski emerged shoeless from the forest and admitted to police that he had killed his ex-wife.

He said evidence would show Tatjana Stefanski suffered 21 “sharp force wounds” to her legs, arms and hands as well as seven stab wounds to her chest and ribs that injured her heart and lungs and led to her death.

The defence has not yet told the jury its theory of events.

This report by Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press, was first published May 27, 2026.