Witness describes screaming match between accused, girl at bush party

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It was obvious to the people who were with her that Emily Altmann was angry.

She and the group of women with whom she had gone to the bush party were walking out of the bush party, followed by another group who were making sure they were leaving.

It was because Altmann got into a screaming match with Isabella Restrepo, another woman at the mid-summer bush bash, over a drink thrown in the direction of Altmann and her group.

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“She was angry and she was talking about how she was going to get someone to come and beat Isa up,” Maya Pluchowski, 21, said Wednesday at the second-degree murder trial of Altmann, 22, and Carlos Guerra Guerra, 23.

“She said she has a bigger friend named Candice who was going to beat her up.”

Pluchowski said Altmann, a woman she had never met until that night when she joined up with some friends to go to the party, got on her phone as they walked down the path and was calling people to tell them about the confrontation by the fire pit that had drawn the attention of the young partygoers and ultimately, prompted them to leave.

What the jury at the trial has heard is, not long after Altmann left the party, Guerra Guerra and friends arrived to meet them and went into the woods while others, who had been warned of their arrival, hid in the thick bushes.

Josue Silva, 18, a Western University student, would be shot dead.

Altmann and Guerra Guerra have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and not guilty to assault with a weapon of Logan Marshall, who was Restrepo’s boyfriend at the time.

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The jury has heard several accounts of what led to the confrontation between Altmann and Restrepo, but Pluchowski was the first to tell the story from the perspective of the group that was showered with the drink.

She said she met up with the group of young women at the home of Jamie Falardeau, a friend of hers. She recalled Altmann drinking rum straight out of mickey bottle and another friend drinking tequila.

Six of them climbed into Altmann’s car and went to “the party in the woods” near Pack Road and Grand Oak Cross in southwest London at about 11 p.m. on July 30, 2021.  They ambled down the dark path to the bonfire where she said about 50 young people had gathered.

Pluchowski said she recognized some people, but her group stayed together. She knew some girls in another group at the party from elementary school and she recognized Restrepo and Rachel Johnson from social media.

At some point, Pluchowski said there was a flash in their direction. “I was under the impression a photo had been taken,” she said under questioning from assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Moser.

“I personally wasn’t too bothered by it. In my opinion, it was just pettiness, so I didn’t mind.”

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But Altmann “appeared to be angry,” she said. While Pluchowski and the other women huddled together “not trying to start drama,” Altmann raised her voice and was cussing in the direction of Restrepo.

Pluchowski said they told Altmann to relax and they returned to mingling at the party.

Five or 10 minutes later, “I felt some liquid hit the back of my head,” Pluchowski said. Someone had thrown a drink at them, she said, and Falardeau got the worst of it. But it was Altmann who was screaming at Restrepo and Restrepo screamed back.

Pluchowski recalled Altmann saying, “You b—-, come here. I’ll beat the … out of you.”

A crowd gathered around the screaming women, looking to see if they would fight, but Pluchowski said she was feeling “anxious” about the situation, and she and another friend stepped away. “I completely disregarded what was happening. I wanted nothing to do with that,” she said.

“Violence was something I would not engage in or want to be around, so I distanced myself,” she said.

She remembered Marshall and some boys getting involved and watched Marshall physically carry Restrepo away from the confrontation.

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When there was no fight, the huddle around the women broke. Pluchowski said she and her group found each other and they decided to leave, because “everybody was angry at our group for starting drama.”

At no time did she feel in danger, she said, but she worried for Falardeau and Altmann because they had done most of the yelling. They walked down the path toward Pack Road with Marshall, Restrepo and others following some distance behind them to make sure they left.

She remembered Restrepo was still yelling at Altmann that “Once I find out who you are I’m going to beat the … out of you.”

And Altmann had her voice raised, saying, “I’m going to call this big … to beat her up.”

Altmann, she said, was walking fast and making phone calls, flailing her hands in the air and “complaining how she didn’t get to fight her.”

Pluchowski is expected to continue her testimony on Thursday.

The jury heard the rest of forensic pathologist Edward Tweedie’s testimony on Wednesday morning when he said, based on his examination of the wound, that the gun that fired the single bullet into Silva’s abdomen “could have been loosely pressed up to skin and I cannot exclude a shot as far away as 36 inches.”

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He also said the exit wound in Silva’s back was a “shored exit wound” meaning his back was against a firm surface when he was shot. It could have been the backpack he was wearing or something else. Tweedie said.

Also testifying was Det. Const. Andrea McGrath-Wheatley, a forensic identification officer who took the jury through a series of photographs of the bush party scene. She described the difficulties police faced because the area was so large, uneven and dense with vegetation. Also, there were scores of empty beer cans and drink containers to sort through throughout the area.

Among the items seized during the first day of searching, just hours after Silva’s death, was a white T-shirt and headband found near some medical debris left behind by emergency workers, a black face mask and a large knife that was shown to the jury.

The police identified a “depression” area in the vegetation near a concrete bunker and McGrath-Wheatley described how on the second day of searching, the police removed the vegetation to get a closer look.

It was there they found a spent 9-millimetre bullet casing.

The trial continues on Thursday.

jsims@postmedia.com

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