‘Someone was seriously hurt’: B.C. Mountie testifies about finding blood-stained Audi

An aerial view of a forest service road is seen on the east side of Mabel Lake near Lumby, B.C., in this photograph taken with a drone on Monday, May 13, 2024. Tatjana Stefanski, 44, was found dead in the Mabel Lake area on April 14 after disappearing a day earlier. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

A Mountie has told a B.C. murder trial about approaching an abandoned vehicle owned by a suspect and being struck by the amount of dried blood inside.

Const. Clay Fixsen told Vitali Stefanski’s second-degree murder trial in Kamloops that he was alone when responding to a tip about the vehicle parked about 25 kilometres down a forest service road near Mable Lake, B.C.

He recounted to the jury of running the vehicle’s plates, determining it was Stefanski’s and then arming himself and approaching it cautiously to see if anyone was inside.

Fixsen said it was empty, but the passenger seat was folded all the way back and there was blood on the headrest of the driver’s side, which looked like there was some kind of struggle “and someone was seriously hurt.”

Stefanski has pleaded not guilty to murdering his ex-wife, 44-year-old Tatjana Stefanski, whose body was found the next day about six kilometres away from the vehicle.

Crown lawyer Rigel Tessmann told the B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday that a bent and bloodied knife that had both Tatjana and Vitali Stefanski’s DNA was found near the body.

An admissions of fact, which was signed by Stefanski’s lawyer, said the RCMP lab that analyzed the swabs taken from inside the Audi also found two DNA profiles — Tatjana and Vitali Stefanski.

Fixsen testified Thursday that he initially responded to a call about a missing person around 8 a.m. on April 13, 2024. He told the court he pulled over to call the woman’s daughter, who had reported her missing, when a white Mercedes SUV pulled up next to him.

“He rolled his window down and he was frantic,” Fixsen said, noting it took a moment before he was able to piece together that the man, Jason Gaudreault, was the boyfriend of the missing woman.

Fixsen said he spent his entire shift working on the call, noting that the investigation included having a helicopter fly over the Lumby area to look for an Audi A4.

He also told of searching a storage locker at the facility that neighbours Gaudreault’s property, where the woman was last seen.

Fixsen said the victim’s son had been given a key to one of the lockers from his father, Vitali Stefanski, so he went to “make sure Tatjana wasn’t inside.”

“No one was inside,” he said, adding that the locker looked “very tidy” and seemed “systematic (with) how things were put in there.”

Fixsen said he later discussed with Gaudreault about posting to social media to say his partner had disappeared and to appeal for information or sightings of the car.

That, he said, is when they received the tip that there was an Audi parked along Mable Lake Road.

After he found the vehicle and saw the bloodied seat, he called for backup, including police dogs, Fixsen said.

The officer’s shift ended around 1 a.m. on April 14, 2024 and Tatjana Stefanski had not been located.

Tessmann told the jury members they will hear that Vitali Stefanski emerged shoeless from the forest later that day as police began towing the car and that he admitted to officers that he had killed his ex-wife.

The prosecutor said the victim had numerous stab wounds, including to her chest and ribs that 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 28, 2026.