Witness testifies she saw masked man shoot teen at bush party during attack

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She heard there might be a gun, but she never expected to see someone would be shot.

The worst thing Jessica Falardeau thought was going to happen when she walked back into the bush bash after she and her group had been kicked out was “someone was going to get beat up.”

“I didn’t expect anything else. Like, they did mention they had a gun, but some people just make things up to scare people, so I just assumed they were saying it as a threat.”

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But about 15 minutes later, she stood two or three metres away and watched two masked men who had been summoned to the party by Emily Altmann start fighting with one young man who had been identified as their target.

Another young man stepped in to help his friend, Falardeau said, and one of the attackers started fighting him. She said she watched as that young man, Josue Silva, was on his back on the ground with the masked attacker straddling him. Then the attacker pulled a pistol out of his right pocket, pointed the gun about 10 centimetres from Silva’s abdomen and fired, Falardeau said.

She heard the pop of the gun and then her sister Jamie yell her name. Falardeau, testifying Monday at the second-degree murder trial of Altmann, 22, and Carlos Guerra Guerra, 23, said she ran out of the bush “horrified” and back to Altmann’s car.

“I was afraid someone else was going to get shot,” she said under questioning from assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Moser.

Altmann and Guerra Guerra have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Silva, an 18-year-old Western University student, and not guilty to assault with a weapon, namely a blunt object, of Logan Marshall, one of Silva’s closest friends.

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Falardeau is a key Crown witness at the trial that has entered its sixth week and is slated to last 10. She is the first witness called who testified to seeing the shooting on July 31, 2021.

But she was also a witness to the whole string of events leading up to and after what had started as a night out with her sister and her friends turn into chaos.

Falardeau described to the jury what it has heard from other witnesses – that Altmann got into a heated argument with Isabella Restrepo, Marshall’s then-girlfriend, over a canned drink that had been thrown in their direction while they were milling around the bonfire.

Falardeau, who was only 15 at the time, didn’t know Restrepo, and referred to her as “can girl.” She also recalled Altmann being upset and saying she “didn’t tolerate us being filmed for no reason.”

Moser showed Falardeau a second-long video already in evidence that was taken by Restrepo that was pointed in her group’s direction and primarily at her, with a purse over her shoulder.

She’d never seen it before. “I don’t appreciate being filmed,” Falardeau said.

Altmann was upset. The argument escalated to the point that Marshall and his friends stepped in. Falardeau referred to him as “can girl’s boyfriend.”

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“Can girl’s boyfriend” and his friends ended up basically escorting Altmann and her group out of the party.  One of Altmann’s friends who hadn’t driven there with them was carried out on the shoulders of her boyfriend. There was a lot of verbal jarring and Falardeau said she heard Altmann say, “You’re gonna get shot.”

Altmann, Falardeau, her sister, MacKenna Bain and Maya Pluchowski returned to Altman’s car and Altmann drove around the block making phone calls and summoning someone Falardeau said she didn’t know to come help her.

When she was off the phone, Falardeau said Altmann told the women, “They were coming with a gun.”

Falardeau said she thought it was just one male who was meeting them and was told he might have been a boyfriend of Altmann’s, and he “had a gun.”

Her sister wanted her to stay in the car, but Falardeau insisted on tagging along when the women met the white SUV that drove up to them at Pack Road and Grand Oak Cross. “I wasn’t going to let Jamie go on her own,” Jessica Falardeau said.

Two men and a woman got out of the SUV. The driver, she said, was taller, seemed like he was in good shape, and was wearing a hoodie, black pants and a mask. The male passenger was “a little bigger and heavier” and his braided beard was peeking out from his mask.  She saw he had a knife.

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The female passenger was bigger, Falardeau said, and had her hair in a ponytail.

Altmann, Falardeau said, told the masked men and the woman that the people involved in the earlier altercation were “in the forest.”

Falardeau said she thought what was going to happen was that the two men were going to beat up “canned girl’s boyfriend” and that Altmann wanted the woman from the SUV to come along to beat up “can girl.”

They didn’t talk much as they went down the path. Altmann, the two guys and the girl had lights on their cell phone and were “looking in the bushes and stuff, looking for people hiding.”

Falardeau said she made it to the bonfire where she saw two male friends from school. She heard a female voice say, “We’re going to split up and look.” She suggested to her friends that they should leave because “I was told something bad was going to happen.”

The two masked men were walking around the party and looking around. Falardeau said she saw them go off in a different direction.

After about 15 minutes, Falardeau said her sister told her they were leaving. They walked up the same path to the road with Altmann, the two masked men and the woman from the SUV up ahead. A group of people appeared on the crest of a small hill. They were all talking together.

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Falardeau said she heard a female voice that she recognized one of the group. Falardeau said she assumed it was “can girl’s boyfriend” and the two masked men attacked him and put him to the ground with punches.

One of his friends stepped in to help. Falardeau said she thought it was the SUV passenger who ended up straddling him. The young man who stepped into help was on his back, covering his face from punches and trying to fight back. Falardeau said he had nothing in his hands.

That’s when she saw the gun come out and the man on the ground be shot. “He had basically stepped in to help his friend,” she said. It was all over in a minute or two.

There was a lot of screaming, she said, and her group ran to the car where Bain and Pluchowski were waiting. “Emily was freaking out that she didn’t really think they were actually going to shoot someone,” Falardeau said.

Altmann drove them home and as Falardeau and her sister got out of the car, Altmann showed them a text message that said they had better not say anything because the shooter knew their names and addresses “and would come after them.”

Falardeau said she talked to no one about what happened until the police came two days later.

The trial continues on Tuesday.

jsims@postmedia.com

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